we can mourn our wasted youth
by sheriffandsteel
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak fell in love with music at a very young age as he often admits. He also fell in love with Richie Tozier at a very young age but that fact wasn't quite as easy to confess, even to himself.


Author's note: Holy shit I have worked harder on this fic than anything I have ever written before.

This is stupidly long for a oneshot but it got away from me and I just couldn't bear to break it into chapters.  
This was inspired by tumblr user billdenbrough post about a loser's club rockband although I wrote about a different band than they created (sorry shark puppy fans).  
All of the characters mentioned by name are from other Stephen King novels, though I didn't write them to bear any resemblance to their actual characters in their source material.  
Anyway, this fic is an insanely long ride that I hope you enjoy!

come yell at me about my 10000 headcanons for this fic on tumblr lumierelalune  
Thank you for reading!

XXXX

Eddie let out a sigh of relief as he opened the front door of his townhouse and saw the package waiting there, just as his email notification had said it would be. He felt a strange sense of near giddiness as he took the box inside to the kitchen, carefully opening it with a box cutter he had purchased solely to open packages and he cleaned the tape residue off of after each use. He was well aware that dull blades could be even more dangerous than a sharp one.

A tawny hardcover book fell into his hands, the cover portraying a bright red electric guitar propped up against an amplifier. There were several stickers with band logos covering both. At first glance Eddie recognized the stickers on the guitar's body for Firestarter, the Corporation and Sweetbriar Rose. The long title was in bold black letters above the guitar with the author's name in a small print like an afterthought in the bottom right corner.

_We rock!-an in-depth look at the bands that shaped the path of alternative rock_

_By Carrie White_

Eddie quickly scanned the table of contents and found that the chapter he was itching to read wasn't until chapter seven. While he was usually a master of discipline Eddie felt like he had done enough waiting in his lifetime to justify him skipping forward six chapters of one book to read what he had been waiting two years to get his hands on it. It wasn't like he wasn't going to go back and read the whole book later anyway. Feeling justified with his choice to skip ahead Eddie grabbed the mug of tea he had been drinking and settled on a barstool at the kitchen island as he flipped to the correct page.

_Chapter Seven: the Losers-an unexpected sound_

Beneath the chapter title was a photo Eddie had seen so many times over his lifetime that it was burned into his brain. Sometimes when he looked at his friends, he still expected them to look like they did in the photograph even though it was over twenty-five years old. Sometimes even his own face in the mirror shocked him with how little it resembled the picture.

There were seven of them in the photograph, six boys and one girl. The photo was taken at their high school graduation, but after they had rid themselves of their caps and gowns. They were standing in front of the school gym in a messy tangle of limbs, arms thrown akimbo around each other. It was one of the few photos from the group's youth where they were all smiling; being finished with high school too bright of a thought for anything to damper their moods in that moment. The picture was taken back before Bev had let her hair grow back out a little, before Ben had slimmed down. It was when Mike still wore his flannel shirts buttoned to the throat and Stan was in his 'suspenders are cool' phase. Eddie still hadn't hit his final measly two inch growth spurt, Bill was still more frail looking than lean and before they had burned Richie's hula girl patterned Hawaiian shirt.

In short, they looked like seven very awkward kids from the middle of nowhere with no taste, no talent, and no chance of surviving in the music world.

_The year was 1995; Britpop had made its way stateside, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened in Cleveland, Ohio, and seven teenagers from Derry, Maine signed a record deal with Duma Records._

Eddie remembered that night well. Mostly he remembered how dirty and gross he had felt the whole time they sat in Jack's office in upper Manhattan. They had come to the office straight from the club and Eddie still felt the sweat and grim coating his skin. He itched to return to their apartment so he could shower it off of him but he managed to keep mostly still. He had twisted his hands so deeply into the long sleeves of his waistcoat that when it came time for him to sign the record deal it took him ten seconds to untangle his shaking fingers from the cloth, the word 'invincible' echoing in his mind as he did.

_The band's music primarily focused on alternative rock with an emphasis on grunge. They are most distinguished for their philosophically cathartic lyrics, erratic stage personas, and melodic sensibilities._

He never admitted it to the rest of the group but Eddie had never thought that their band would amount to anything. He had expected that they would move to New York City and play a handful of shows at bars or nightclubs. He had figured they would play for a year, maybe even two, until they grew bored and went their separate ways to college and marriage and 2.5 kids apiece. It was an inevitability he dreaded even long after they were signed.

_The lure of their music cannot be pinned down to one thing, it encompasses everything. Who can say what was the most popular part of the Losers' music? Was it Mike Hanlon's distinctive vocal quality? Beverly Marsh's hypnotic drumming and feminist anthems? Richie Tozier's eccentric bass lines? The catchy guitar playing and backup vocals of Bill Denbrough and Ben Hanscom? Stanley Uris's soaring keyboard tracks? Or the haunting melodies of Eddie Kaspbrak's electric violin?_

Eddie had never wanted to learn how to play the violin, Eddie had just wanted to play soccer with Bill.

It was the summer before second grade and Bill's parents had signed him up for the children's soccer league that played in the park three days a week. There weren't enough kids in town to justify calling it a 'league', they only had enough for there to be two teams. They shifted the players around every few days to make things more interesting. Eddie longed to get to run and play with the other kids and once Bill told him about how fun it was the thought of it consumed Eddie's every waking thought.

He had begged his mother to sign him up for the game, to let him play with the other kids but she refused. She cited his asthma, his weak immune system, his small stature as the reasons and Eddie didn't know yet not to believe her. He still felt the absence of his father like a physical thing in the house, not enough time had yet passed for his presence to have faded to distant memory. Without him there, his mother's word was law and her coddling had festered into full on smothering.

Despite how it would seem in the years to come, Sonia Kaspbrak loved her son, in her own horrifying overbearing way. She noticed how despondent that he became when he could not go outside to play with the other children. She knew that he needed something to distract him, to keep him from staring longingly out the window all the time.

Sonia was not about to let him go and run around outside where who knew what horrible thing might happen to him (her mind kept her up at night with thoughts of kidnapping, broken bones, viral infections from such close proximity to so many other children). No, sports were simply out of the question. The best thing would be something that he could learn while he was still in the house where she could keep a close eye on him. The options in Derry were quite limited but she still managed to find an ad in the newspaper for a music teacher who would do house calls and the very next week he appeared at their door, two violins in hand.

In the very first note he called from the small wooden instrument Sonia realized she had made a mistake. She had not given her son the gift of a distraction, a way to pass the time until the long days of summer ended. She had just walked him into the arms of something that he might grow to love more than her.

_There are certain instruments that one expects to hear in a rock band but the electric violin is rarely one of them. Kaspbrak's hypnotic violin and Uris's uplifting keyboard set the Losers' sound apart from all other bands on the scene._

Falling in love with the violin was easier than he had expected, certainly easier than learning how to play it was. His mother's plan worked and Eddie was no longer filled with the thought of playing soccer or even of getting to go and run with the other kids. The music consumed his thoughts, his soul. It was easier to face the real world with the music in his head.

_Some called it alternative rock, some called it ska, some called it funk, no matter how you classified their music the genre hybridist band was soon well known and well loved. The uniqueness of their sound, combined with their utterly chaotic and contagious energy, quickly put the Losers at the forefront of the alternative rock scene._

He couldn't remember the first song he wrote he had been writing them for so long. He hid his songs in a notebook at Bill's house, trusting that his friend wouldn't read it more than he trusted his mother. Eddie had no plans of ever showing anyone his songs, he wrote them for him and him alone.

Somehow that made it seem even more important to him that he wrote them.

He had never had any real intention of anyone actually hearing them.

_Not only were the members talented musicians they were all also gifted song writers. Their lyrics were somehow both uplifting and self-deprecating, they could make you laugh and cry in the space of a verse. They sung about topics ranging from the uncertainty of new love to anti-bullying to childhood fears all within a single album. No two songs sounded the same and no song sounded like anything else on the radio. The Losers had a sound, and more importantly a voice, that was entirely their own._

One of the biggest skills Eddie had was his ability to bury things. He was very good at it. He would wrap a memory up in a tight little box and label it was a bright red 'OPEN UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES' sticker and toss it to the darkest deepest recesses of his mind. But even with all his precautions and his repressing some things refused to be truly buried. And no matter how much burying he did the fact was that the memories were still there, hidden in the crumbling foundation of his thoughts. Just because he didn't think about them didn't mean he truly got to forget. There were several things in Eddie Kaspbrak's life that he longed to truly forget but the events of the summer of 1989 were definitely at the top of the list.

He tried valiantly not to think about the deranged man in the clown costume that tried to kill him and his friends. The man, no the clown, who had hovered over him and his broken arm, his teeth snapping inches from his face until Richie and Beverly pulled him off of him. The clown who so easily told Bill that he had killed his little brother Georgie. Who smiled when he told them the horrifying way he'd disposed of the body, which was the same thing he planned to do to them. Eddie mostly longed to forget the awful minute when they finally managed to stop him.

Eddie managed to block it out with significant success when he was awake. Sleeping was a whole different matter.

Nightmares kept him awake most nights long into adulthood.

_Despite their whirlwind success the Losers' path to fame has been anything but conventional. The seven members of the band hail from a small town in upstate Maine that is most well-known for the disturbing amount of unusual deaths that occur there. In the summer of 1989, sixteen children were murdered by a man who dressed up as a clown and lured them into the sewer system. He was eventually stopped when he attacked a group of children who managed to fend off his brutal attack. The man was killed in the altercation, the children were not charged as they were clearly acting in self-defense. Due to them being underage the names of the children involved were never released to the public. There are several people that believe the members of the Losers were those children as there are heavy references to childhood trauma, clowns, and the summer of 1989 in their music. For years the band never publicly addressed these rumors._

After the attack, after the hospital, and after the police report, Eddie did not see his friends again for eight long days.

It had nothing to do with their lack of trying. He heard them at the front door several times a day asking his mother to see him. She refused to let them near him, claiming they were the reason her precious son was attacked and nearly taken from her. Eddie knew she was wrong but he was too exhausted and horrified to challenge her. He longed to see his friends again but more than anything he just wanted to be able to close his eyes and not see a clown grinning back at him behind his closed lids.

Finally, on the morning of the eighth day all six of them showed up together and flatly refused to leave her porch until they saw Eddie. They wanted proof that he was okay and alive.

Sonia hadn't wanted to let any of them in, least of all Beverly, but in the end Eddie crept down the hallway and was overcome with the need to see his friends again. To make sure they were alright, that it hadn't all just been a bad dream. He knew this last one wasn't true, no matter how much he wished it was. He had the cast to prove it after all.

"Let them in Mommy." Eddie whispered, his voice hoarse. It was the first thing he had said in days. "Please."

Sonia let out a long-suffering sigh that was more familiar to Eddie than the sound of her voice and she took a small step backwards, making everyone have to squeeze sideways through the small opening in the door.

"Keep your door open." his mother said coldly, her icy eyes never leaving Beverly's who only looked at her with resignation to the fact that nothing she said or did would ever change his mother's horrible opinion of her.

No one said anything as Eddie led them down the short hallway to his room but the moment they were away from his mother's hawk like gaze Richie was wrapping his arms around him and squishing him tight against his side.

"I thought I'd never see you again Eds!" Richie cried in one of his Voices.

Eddie wiggled out of his grip and cast him a glare, "Don't call me Eds!" he snapped before turning to look at the rest of the group with relief. They were all still there, all in one piece. Most of their bruises and cuts had faded leaving Eddie's broken arm the only visible reminder of their attack.

For a long moment they stood in silence that was neither comfortable or awkward, it just was. The only noise was the faint sound of the television in the other room. It was far quieter than it usually was and Eddie knew his mother had turned it down in the obvious attempt to listen in on their conversation. He wouldn't have been surprised if she was loitering in the hallway.

His friends clearly knew that too and no one mentioned the attack or anything else as they all patted Eddie on the back or gave him slightly gentler hugs than Richie had. Eddie felt himself relaxing for the first time since it happened and he was hit by a bone deep exhaustion that made him slowly sink down to the floor beside his bed. The others followed him down to the floor and they looked around at each other before bursting into giggles that quickly blossomed into full on laughter.

Nothing was funny, and yet everything was. They had faced down a murderer and survived and yet they weren't allowed to shut the door to Eddie's bedroom.

After their mirth subsided, they fell back into a companionable silence and Eddie slumped against Richie who was sitting beside him as the exhaustion began to take over him. It was suddenly a struggle just to keep his eyes open.

"I didn't know you played the violin." Ben's soft voice dragged Eddie back from his near sleep and he followed Ben's gaze to where his violin case rested open on his desk. He had been playing the violin nearly nonstop for the past week. Its sound was the only thing louder than the memory of the clown's laughter. Eddie hadn't yet perfected the art of repressing.

"Eds is the next Mozart!" Richie declared in his British guy voice, mimicking the motion of running a bow against a phantom violin. Eddie was too tired to do more than cast him a weak glare.

"Would you play us something?" Mike asked curiously, standing up to grab the violin before Eddie was done nodding. He didn't usually play for people other than his mom and his music teacher but he could tell from their pale skin and faded demeanor they had been sleeping about as well as he had. Maybe the music could drown out the clown for them too.

Eddie sat up straight from where he'd been leaning against Richie and took the violin out of Mike's hands. With all of them together he couldn't hear the clown as loudly but that didn't stop him from playing as loud as he could get his violin to go without making it sound like it was screeching.

_The Losers first formed their band in 1991 under the name Clown Killers. The members have often cited Bill Denbrough as the ringleader behind the band forming. When Denbrough himself is asked about this he simply shrugs and says it was a group decision._

It was hard to say which one of them Henry Bowers hated most. If asked he probably wouldn't have known himself, he hated all of them vehemently, violently and loudly.

The only way to survive life in Derry was to not get on Henry Bower's bad side which was basically the entirety of Henry Bowers. If he had a good side it was a very very miniscule one and it couldn't even really be classified as good, only slightly less bad. He hated their group of friends so much that no one else in school was willing to risk his wrath by being nice to them. Some people even went out of their way to be mean to them (knocking over lunch trays, shoving them into walls, hiding fish in their lockers) all because it kept them even further away from Bower's aim.

They all fell victim to him more than once (most of them still had the scars to prove it) but they figured out quickly that they were safest when they moved as a group. They did everything they could together, the safety of their numbers protecting them the best that they could. Would they have been friends under better circumstances, without the threat of Bowers and his goons? It was a thought that was not even worth chasing. Their circumstances were what they were and the close bonds of their friendship grew ever stronger with each taunt hurled their way, each punch thrown.

The group had taken to hanging out at Richie's house after school as his parents were rarely home and it was the closest to the school. If they ran fast enough they could usually beat the Bowers' gang outside and from there it was simply a deadly game of catch until they were all panting and safe behind the locked door of Richie's house (or on the days he caught them licking their wounds after they finally managed to escape).

Eddie had started to leave his violin at Richie's house so he could practice after school. He didn't dare bring it to school with him and risk it being broken at the hands of Bowers and co. His latest nightmare contained the clown trying to stab him with the shards of his violin neck.

The day had been a good one, Bowers had been stuck in detention and without their ringleader his gang wasn't really interested in sprinting after them. They had actually gotten to walk to Richie's that day instead of their usual desperate dash. They were lounging around Richie's bedroom as Eddie was toying around with a melody he'd had stuck in his head for a few days. Even though the rest of the house was empty they only ever hung out in there, like they weren't welcome in the rest of the house. The first time Eddie had come over he had nearly had a panic attack at the sight of Richie's messy room. As they became teenagers it got even worse but Richie started picking up after himself when he woke up during a sleepover to find Eddie scrubbing at his baseboard with a toothbrush. Now the room was still messy but it was more of a lived in messy. At the very least it no longer made Eddie want to go bath in disinfectant.

Eddie let the last note of his song stretch on as he tried to lock the sound away in his mind so he could play it back later. He had recently started to write his own melodies as well as the lyrics he kept in stuffed notebooks in the back of Bill's closet.

"We s-s-s-should start a b-b-band." Bill suddenly mused from where he lay stretched out on the floor, staring up at the ceiling in thought.

"We'd be world famous rock stars overnight!" Richie crowed, looking up from the comic book he and Beverly were reading on the bed.

Eddie snorted from the foot of the bed and knocked Richie's foot away from where he kept swinging it at his face.

"Your feet stink like onions." Eddie gripped as he bent to place his violin back in its case.

"I'm s-s-s-serious guys." Bill said, propping himself up on his elbows to look at each of them.

Stan looked up from the game of checkers he was currently kicking Mike's ass in. "What would we play?"

"Music." Bill said immediately which caused everyone to scoff at him. "It d-d-doesn't matter what we s-s-sound like. We'll m-make our own s-s-sound."

"No, I meant what instruments." Stan explained as Mike kinged his fourth king in row with a swear as Stan smirked.

"You'd play the keyboard obviously." Bev said, looking up from the comic book to smile at him. Stan had been playing the organ at the synagogue for the last two years since the previous organ player passed away in her sleep. "I'd play the drums."

"You play the drums?" Ben asked curiously, looking up from the history book he was reading to look at her with interest. Of course, every time Ben looked at Beverly it was with interest.

"No but I could learn. Besides, I have the most rhythm out of any of us." Beverly said, shrugging the best she could from where she lay on her stomach.

"Um, fuck you too." Richie scoffed, sitting up to shove her shoulder playfully. "We both know I carried us in our lindy-hop performance! I have just as much rhythm as you!"

Eddie rolled his eyes at the memory of the pairs' swing-dancing performance in the ninth-grade talent show. He was still surprised Richie didn't break something during it but he had to admit (if only just to himself) that Richie did have rhythm.

"You can play bass then. That's just as important to the rhythm section." Beverly said sagely, bumping Richie's shoulder back.

"M-m-mike can s-s-sing." Bill said, pushing himself up into a full sitting position as the idea fully took place. "B-ben and I b-both p-play guitar." Bill had taken up guitar shortly after the attack by the clown and Ben had been playing in the high school jazz band for the past year.

"And Eddie Spaghetti will rule the show with his famous violin!" Richie cried in a new Voice that Eddie very much did not care for, sitting up to throw his arms out in a grand flourishing gesture that made Eddie roll his eyes so hard they hurt. The pleasure he felt at the compliment was lessened by his annoyance at the nickname and the Voice it had been said in.

"What kind of band has a violin in it?" Ben asked, not meanly just curious.

"The best kind!" Richie said loudly, the volume of it making Eddie wince as Richie was leaning on his shoulder and his mouth was way too close to Eddie's ear for him to be speaking at that level. Eddie nodded along but quietly he agreed with Ben.

They all fell over themselves in excited chatter about the daydream of being famous rock stars one day but Eddie hung back. He didn't know of a single band with a violin in it that wasn't an orchestra. If they were really serious about starting a band and actually trying to go somewhere with it, Eddie likely wouldn't be in it for very long. He tried not worry about what that might mean for his friendships but his nightmares were soon replaced by finding himself alone in the house on Neibolt street with the clown advancing on him, broken violin in hand and no one else in sight.

_While the vast majority of high school bands peter out the Losers managed to stay together through what all have described as very difficult adolescent years where they were often bullied and ridiculed at their school._

To his very high surprise they really did form a band and even more they stuck with it. It took months for them to all reach a level of playing that didn't make the others cringe or slap their hands over their ears. It took them nearly twice as long for them to actually play together without sounding like they were playing seven different songs. Through all their cringe worthy practices they stuck with it and by the time they were halfway through their junior year they actually started to sound good.

The band gave them all a much-needed outlet to let off some steam and rage and they quickly went from playing covers to writing their own songs. They kept what they were doing quiet, even once Henry Bowers was arrested for the murder of his father, they weren't exactly popular kids. The bullying did let up a little (it was aimed more at humiliation now than violence which was somehow no easier to live with, these new wounds took much longer to heal) but no one saw any reason to give anyone anymore ammo by letting them know about their one positive outlet.

They named the band the Clown Killers after their childhood battle and every time they said it to each other they laughed as though if they laughed enough, they could shake the memories from their minds. They had been playing in Bill's garage for close to two years when Eddie was walking home from school alone one day and he saw it.

There it was in the window of the pawn shop, its strings looking shiny and harsh and several scratches on its body but it was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Eddie had read about these in a magazine but he had never seen one in person. He knew what the pickup by its string was for just as he knew that the tiny amplifier next to it was meant to be sold together.

Eddie ran home and felt a soar of relief his mother was out as he sprinted upstairs and pulled his life savings out of his snow boots in his closet and sprinted back to the pawn shop, certain that it would have sold in the ten minutes he had been gone. But there it was still shining like a beacon in the window.

Eddie spent every penny he had ever saved from every birthday card and pitiful allowance to buy the electric violin but it felt like a small price to pay for his future. He took the violin straight to Richie's house, not wanting his mother to find his new purchase. The boys spent hours wincing as Eddie learned the different way to play his new violin until he was able to play it in a way that didn't make unearthly sounds come from the amplifier.

Richie lay on his bed and watched as Eddie played through 'rock war!', the song they had all written together a few weeks back. The song sounded entirely different coming from his new violin than it had when he had played it just the day before. As the last note faded into silence Eddie met Richie's eyes, not surprised to see he looked as stunned as Eddie felt.

"Woah." Richie whispered, a grin beginning to stretch at the corners of his mouth. Eddie nodded in agreement, staring down in wonder at the violin in his hands. Maybe there would be a lasting place for him in this band after all.

_Due to their vast unpopularity the band was both surprised and excited when a fellow student asked them to play at their party. It was to be their first show but it turned out to be an elaborate ruse to get them all into one place away from adult supervision. No one has ever spoken explicitly about the events of that night other than to say that it was a traumatizing experience that bonded them closer than ever. That night the Clown Killers ceased to exist and the Losers took their place. Renaming the band with the taunt their classmates so often threw at them was a decision that would shape the rest of their careers._

Even without them telling anyone they were in a band word had a way of getting around in a small town. Someone had overheard them practicing when they walked by the Denbrough's garage one night and by lunch the next day the whole school knew. They dealt with a new onslaught of taunting as people ridiculed them for daring to dream of something they didn't think they could ever succeed in.

After being teased and mercilessly bullied for so long about everything in their lives it was easy to get used to being tormented about their music. When Gretta Keene asked them to play a few songs at her party while her parents were out of town Eddie assumed it was a cruel joke. He hadn't forgotten the day she'd scrawled 'LOSER' across his cast. He had changed the word to say 'LOVER' but it still hurt to think about it.

But despite all of their misgivings they had never been asked to do a show before and the lure of having other people hear their music was too strong. Even though they all knew that it was likely a trap the small sliver of hope they had that it wasn't proved to be stronger. They borrowed Mike's grandfather's truck to carry their equipment and drove over to West Broadway and the big house Gretchen lived in.

Eddie had butterflies in his stomach the size of swans and he wasn't sure if it was because he was nervous this was all a joke or because he was anxious about playing in front of other people. In the end, it didn't really matter why he was nervous. They went inside to see where they were supposed to set up their equipment and immediately realized that while they were there to be entertainment it was not the kind they had been hoping for.

Eddie managed to successfully bury the nine minutes they were inside the Keene house from his memory. He remembered walking through the front door and he remembered Richie pulling him over the side of the pickup as their classmates hurled things at them while shouting 'Losers! Losers! Losers!' that in any other town would have had the neighbors calling the cops. But this was Derry and the only people who were going to look out for them, was them. The nine minutes in between those two moments forever remained blissfully, blessedly, blank.

Mike sped the truck down the road as the rest of them huddled in the back of the pickup among the shards of their broken equipment and what fragile remains were left of their dignity. The only instrument that had survived the night was Eddie's violin which had managed to go unnoticed where it sat on the floor of the cab of the truck. The pieces of everyone else's instruments lay scattered in broken heaps around them.

The truck went over a bump that made the broken neck of Ben's guitar poke into Eddie's thigh and he winced, not from the pain but from the sudden guilt that his instrument had come out of all this unscathed. As if he could sense his thoughts Ben reached over and pulled the broken bit of his guitar away from Eddie before gently squeezing his knee, silently reminding him that it wasn't his fault. Eddie took shallow breaths through his mouth and tried to convince himself that was true. He had known they were walking into a trap, they all had. They had known but the thought of a dream had been too luring to pass up. Eddie knew now that this, this, was the price for wanting things he wasn't supposed to have.

All of them stunk so badly that even in the open air of the pickup bed Eddie could smell them. He didn't know how Mike hadn't had to pull over to throw up yet, locked as he was in the cab of the truck. The backs of Eddie's knees were stuck together and they made a squelching noise as Eddie moved, trying to dislodge another piece of Beverly's broken drum kit out from underneath him. It was easier for him to focus on the broken instruments than the foul foreign substances coating his body. They were all covered in sticky red blood Eddie desperately hoped wasn't human and other matter he tried very hard not to think on.

He forced himself to take shallow breaths through his mouth and focused on not vomiting on everyone and adding to the stench. They drove in silence to the quarry and despite the incredible stupidness of jumping off the rock in the dark, especially in the coldness of early April, they all threw themselves off the ledge and plummeted to the dark water below. In that moment there was likely very little any of them wouldn't do to clean their bodies of this filth.

The others had all jumped so easily, without a single thought to what was waiting for them below. They all knew it was better than what was up here. Despite his desire to be clean, Eddie found himself frozen by the ledge looking down into the darkness. He could just make out the reflection of the moon in the water far below them. Had it always been that far down or was the darkness playing tricks on him?

"Let's go Eds." Richie said tensely, egging him on. They were the last two left to jump and Eddie knew Richie was waiting to make sure Eddie jumped before he did or there was a very high chance Eddie might not jump at all, filth or no filth.

"Don't call me Eds." Eddie snapped, his hands curling into fists in annoyance. He rolled his shoulders as his disgust in what was covering him began to win out over his fear at the jump. He had done this jump countless times over the years but something about doing it in the dark made it seem as daunting as it had been the first time he had jumped. He simply could not get his feet to move. Another minute of Eddie trying to talk his body into cooperating and it stubbornly refusing passed before Richie sighed and stepped forward to take Eddie's disgusting hand in his own equally disgusting hand.

"Let's go." Richie repeated before turning and running towards the edge, not giving Eddie a moment to think it through as he followed Richie off the edge of the world.

The water they landed in was so cold that it, far more than the length of their drop, knocked Eddie's breath away. He let himself sink as deep as he dared through the waters, suddenly alone as he had lost Richie's hand upon impact with the unforgiving water. Eddie opened his eyes and had just enough time to panic at the darkness before a hand gripped his and Richie pulled him up to the surface.

They all shone in the moonlight, water droplets sparkling on them even through the filth still not yet completely gone from their skin. Eddie looked into each of their faces and he knew in that moment with sudden startling clarity that something vast had shifted inside each of them. Any love any of them might have been harboring for Derry had shriveled up, leaving nothing but a vast aching emptiness inside of them waiting to be filled.

The Clown Killers died inside of Gretchen Keene's house that night.

In the dark freezing waters of the quarry the Losers were born.

_**Sadie Dunhill** (music critic): Calling themselves 'the Losers' was a great choice. Right away it snagged you in, made you interested in what these people who so casually flaunted the very insult they had been called, had to say. The very name of their band was like a beacon to every outsider out there saying, 'Listen to this album. You'll be safe here.'_

Graduation was approaching with a vengeance and not a single one of them had a clue what they were going to do next.

Oh, they had suggestions, they had expectations they were being expected to live up to. But not a single one of them really had a plan.

Eddie had no idea what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He had been focusing for so long on just surviving that day, on just surviving that week, that he had no idea what he was supposed to do now that he was looking down the barrel of the next forty plus years of his life.

Thankfully he was not the only one feeling that way. They all felt trapped by the expectations their family was putting on them, the pressures of society. Bev wanted to leave Derry, she'd been aching to run towards the future as long as Eddie had known her. Maybe it was the surety with which she made the suggestion, maybe it was the fact that none of the rest of them had no freaking clue what else to do with their lives, whatever the reason was, when she suggested six weeks before graduation that they all move to New York City to really pursue the band thing it didn't seem like that crazy of an idea.

Oh sure, there were complications to the idea, complications they talked about loudly and at length.

No one had ever heard them play before, as Ben acutely pointed out. They might actually suck.

None of them had ever been to New York City. They had no idea where to play or how to go about getting shows there, Stan was quick to reason.

Eddie wouldn't yet be eighteen when they graduated, his mother would never let him leave the state let alone go to live in NYC as Eddie reminded them apologetically, hating the truth of the words even as he said them.

Mike pointed out they wouldn't have jobs when they got there. Even if they made it big it wouldn't happen overnight, they needed money to pay bills.

They still hadn't replaced their broken equipment, they had been playing with the school's instruments as Richie loudly and angrily reminded them as if any of them could have ever forgotten.

All of these points were equally valid and important and not a single one of them mattered because Bill took one look around at them all where they slumped dejectedly around Richie's bedroom floor and declared with the most certainty he had ever said anything, "We were meant to make music. We should go."

None of them had ever been very good at saying no to Bill Denbrough and all of them had already followed him into hell once. What was one more time?

So they went.

_After managing to survive the rough years of high school the members decided to move over four hundred and fifty miles away to New York City where they had a better chance of getting their music recognized._

Bill and Stan made a trip to New York one weekend in May, three weeks before their graduation. They managed to find them a rehearsal studio as well as an affordable apartment nearby. They returned with stories on how big the city was, how weird it smelled, the different kinds of people they saw. Their stories filled Eddie with a desire he hadn't known that he was capable of.

It also filled him with a heart stopping sense of dread.

He had yet to tell his mother about his plans, she didn't even know that he played in a band. He was going to tell her when they first formed, really he was, but he had learned at a young age what the tick in her jaw meant when he talked. It meant 'Danger! Danger!' It meant 'Approach with caution!' It meant 'shut up Eddie before she takes away something else you love!' Nothing made her jaw tick like that more than music so when Eddie moved his violin over to Richie's and she commented so happily on his sudden lack of interest in playing Eddie had been quick to agree with her. His mother had been so happy about his sudden disregard for music that Eddie couldn't bear to bring himself to break her heart and tell her not only was he playing even more now, he was also playing in a band. That was a good way to get himself on house arrest with a new illness she suddenly realized that he had.

Besides, at the time Eddie had thought the band thing wasn't actually going to last. He figured they'd have fun for a while before growing bored and moving on to other things. Why worry his mother over nothing? That was the reasoning Eddie gave himself for his silence but at the heart of himself he knew there was another just as valid of a reason. What she didn't know he was doing she couldn't stop him from and Eddie really didn't want her to try to stop him from this.

Which meant that as Eddie's graduation loomed Sonia Kaspbrak had not the slightest inclination of her son's true intentions for the rest of his life. She thought that he was going to take a year off between high school and college and stay home and help her around the house. When he did finally leave her for college, she expected him to go to Husson University in Bangor and commute the hour long drive each day. He would graduate and return to find a job in Derry, staying with her because of her failing health. Eventually he'd find a nice girl and settle down and they would name her first grandchild after her, or perhaps her beloved Frank if it was a boy. She'd had the roadmap to Eddie life mapped out since he was still growing inside of her. It had just never occurred to her that he might have a roadmap of his own.

Eddie wouldn't know any of this until she lobbed it at him like knives over the phone months later but he did know that telling her his plans for New York would break her heart. He also knew that once she knew his plan, she would do everything in her power to keep him in the house, he wouldn't even put it past her to chain him up or break his legs. If she didn't resort to violence, she would figure out a way to confine him with her words. He still couldn't stop using his inhaler even though he had known for years now that there wasn't real medicine inside of it. If she didn't physically stop him, she would talk him out of it or guilt him into staying. Eddie was sick of having to do what she wanted him to. He wanted the chance to have his own life, his own dreams.

Which was why he didn't tell her them.

_**Richard Dees** (reporter, Inside View): What would music be like without the Losers? That is one question I am grateful to not know the answer too._

They were each tempted to skip graduation but in the end they all went, more for their parents than themselves. Eddie didn't care much for the pomp and circumstance of it and he was a little annoyed that Stan lost his place as salutatorian at the last moment and didn't get to give a speech.

He hadn't been allowed to go to Stan's bar mitzvah but he had heard Richie tell the story hundreds of times by now. Eddie probably knew what Stan had said that day better than he did at this point. He had been looking forward to seeing him go off on the gathered townsfolk. Eddie met Stan's eyes as the girl who beat him out for salutatorian thanks to some weighted AP classes gave some boring speech about 'the fond memories they would all look back on'. Stan mouthed 'bullshit' at him and Eddie tried to disguise his laughter into a cough he hoped his mother didn't notice or she'd try to keep him home that night.

After the ceremony and the obligatory photos with their parents they quickly separated their folks and went to their own homes. Most of their parents knew they intended to leave for New York City the next day. Others, meaning Beverly and Eddie's, did not. They wanted to keep it that way until the very last minute.

Eddie spent dinner with his mother who cried three times about him growing up and kept making him promise not to leave her. Eddie made each promise with his fingers crossed and the certainty that an ulcer was forming in his stomach.

Bill picked him up in his dad's car later that evening and they drove out to Mike's farm for a celebratory party and to talk logistics for the following morning. They had rented a moving van to take them the miles to NYC and were figuring out who had to be picked up first and how much stuff they could bring. Their equipment was the most important part and they had managed to replace all of their instruments between the pawn shop, some newspaper ads, and the school selling their drumkit when they bought a new one.

Their plans finally finalized Eddie helped himself to the beer Stan offered him and drank it slowly, his muscles tense and his stomach such a tight a ball of nerves he was worried wouldn't be able to hold the beer down.

Some fretful hours later Eddie knew he couldn't put it off any longer and he needed to go home to pack. His mother would be waiting up for him but by now she would be tired enough that once he got home, she wouldn't wake up to the sounds of him packing or get up to check on him in the middle of the night. Eddie already knew he wouldn't be sleeping that night.

Not wanting to drive home with anyone since they had all been drinking Eddie bid them goodnight and readied himself to walk home in the dark. It wasn't as scary as it used to be when Bowers was around. His cronies had all moved on to bigger targets or been imprisoned by now. There were no serial killers on the lose so Eddie figured he'd be mostly safe making the long dark walk home.

Still, he couldn't stop his shoulders from sagging in relief when Richie said he'd walk home with him. If the other boy noticed for once he chose not to comment. They walked down the dark roads in companionable silence that was uncommon for Richie. Eddie figured he was probably just as nervous as he was about leaving. Usually Richie talked more when he was nervous but Eddie figured maybe he was just at a new level of nervous that he had never seen before. It was understandable, neither of them had ever been further than Bangor and they were about to move to a different state with no real clue what to do when they got there. They were about to step out into the great unknown with nothing more than a dream and each other. To say it was unsettling was putting it lightly.

They came upon the kissing bridge and Richie came to a sudden stop, hesitating by the rail like he wanted to say something. Eddie looked over at him curiously, he couldn't remember the last time he had been with Richie and not heard him speak for this long. It looked like he was searching for the right words to say which Eddie knew had to be a trick of the light. Richie rarely thought before he spoke. Eddie shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweater as he waited. It might be early summer but the nights still held a chill. Eddie shifted from foot to foot as Richie just stood there looking like he was waging some great internal battle. Eddie couldn't tell from his face in the darkness whether he was on the winning side or not.

"You okay?" Eddie finally asked, unable to stand the silence any longer.

The moonlight glinted off of Richie's glasses as he flashed Eddie a grin and stepped closer to throw his arm around Eddie's shoulders as if he hadn't just been standing there lost in thought for minutes.

"Course I am Eds! You, me, a moonlight stroll-what else does a guy need?"

"Don't call me Eds." Eddie said reflexively with an eye roll. He was tempted to roll his shoulders and knock Richie's arm off of him but his arm was like a warm blanket and Eddie found himself stepping closer into the warmth of it instead.

_**Mike Hanlon** (lead singer, the Losers): Moving to New York City like we did was the dumbest decision of our lives. Don't get me wrong it was also the best but looking back on it now it was really astonishingly stupid. I still can't believe our families let us go._

His mother's cries were loud and jagged knives sent straight through his ear drums and into his heart. Eddie forced himself to keep his focus on trying to fit all of his stuff into the already packed van as he shook her hands off of his shoulders where she kept gripping at his arms in an attempt to drag him back into the safety of her house.

"Don't do this to me Eddie!" his mother cried as Beverly barked at his curious neighbors pretending to water their lawn to mind their own business. "I forbid you to leave!"

His things finally packed safely inside Stan and Bill managed to shove the van doors closed and they exchanged a look with Eddie that he knew meant, 'we're here if you need us but this one you gotta do on your own.'

For one brief panic filled moment Eddie considered falling back into his mother's warm embrace and letting her coddle him back into her overbearing house. He felt himself tottering on an edge, on one side his mother and the safety she always promised him and on the other side his friends and the bright and alluring promise of the future. He felt himself swaying in place and he dug desperately in his pockets for his inhaler, feeling his lungs suddenly tightening. His mother took that as a sign of him choosing to stay and she let out a cry of relief and wrapped her arm around Eddie's thin shoulders.

"Eduardo! Andale! Let's go!" Richie suddenly cried, leaning out of the van's side door to wave Eddie forward. The air managed to come in a little easier to Eddie at that and he swallowed hard as he made the decision he was always going to make.

"I'm sorry mommy." Eddie found himself saying before he could even think it through. He leaned forward to press a quick kiss to her cheek. "I'll write you every day. I love you." She was too stunned by his betrayal to pull him back against her and so for once he managed to slip out of her grip with ease.

Eddie took the hand Richie offered to help pull him into the van and it was a good thing he had something to hold on to because the anguished cry his mother let out as Mike slid the van door shut behind him echoed in his ears so loudly he nearly jumped out of the van again. He could hear her shouting that she was going to call the police over the engine as Ben pulled away from the curb.

The inside of the van was filled with a stunned silence so loud it was almost deafening. This was it. This moment was the ending of everything they had known before and the beginning of everything yet to come. Eddie felt more drunk in that moment than he ever had the few times they'd snuck beer out at Mike's farm.

"Holy shit." Richie suddenly broke the spell with a laugh, looking at Eddie with eyes wide behind his thick glasses. "I can't believe we're actually leaving this fucking place."

"Yeah, holy shit." Eddie whispered in agreement his voice hoarse and his mouth suddenly bone dry. Was that excitement he was feeling or was his heart racing because he was approaching a far to young heart attack? They said stress did horrible things to your heart. Eddie wondered if he would live long enough to find out just what those things were.

His thoughts running dark and chaotic Eddie didn't let go of Richie's hand until the 'Thank you for visiting Derry!' sign was no longer in sight.

_**Beverly Marsh** (drummer, the Losers): Seeing Derry in the rearview mirror is still one of the best days of my life. I'd spent eighteen years waiting for the chance to run towards something. In that moment it felt like all of my dreams had already come true._

New York City was somehow worse than Eddie had been expecting.

Sure, there were good things. There was his sudden new found freedom that he really didn't know what to do with and he clearly wasn't utilizing as well as the rest of his friends. There was their rehearsal space where he could play his violin for as long or as loud as he wanted. There were lots of cool new places to see and visit. There was the sense that no one thought he was a loser here, mainly because no one spared a moment to think about him at all.

But mostly there were bugs, and dirt, and crime and seven teenagers living in a two-bedroom apartment even though their lease said no more than three people could live there. Thankfully, their landlord didn't live in the building and no one else who lived there gave a shit what anyone else was doing as long as it wasn't burning the building down or louder than the sound of their television or music. Depending on the tenant that order was reversed.

The first time they walked into the apartment after nearly ten hours on the road Eddie was so exhausted from his sleepless night the day before that he was ready to fall asleep on the first flat surface he saw. At least, until Bill opened the door and Eddie nearly burst into angry bitter tears.

"What the fuck?" he whispered, his eyes darting around the large empty room in dismay. He had known they didn't have any furniture, he had expected that, he didn't care about that. They could buy furniture. What he hadn't expected was for the apartment to be so_ filthy._

"What's wrong?" Beverly asked lingering with him in the doorway as the others went into the tiny apartment, Richie cast a worried look at Eddie over his shoulder and hesitated in the doorway too.

"What's wrong?" Eddie asked, his voice hitching in his panic. "It's filthy!" he cried, pointing to the stains on the broken tile floor.

"It's all we could afford." Stan said with an apologetic shrug. "We can clean it tomorrow."

"You think I'm sleeping here when it looks like this?" Eddie asked, gazing in distaste at the brown water stains on the ceiling. He was pretty sure he saw a bug skitter in the corner of the kitchen. He clamped down the sudden roiling feeling of revulsion in his stomach and tried to silence the voice in his head shouting that he had made a mistake. It sounded unmistakably like his mother. "I'm cleaning tonight."

"With what? No stores will be open." Mike asked as he turned on the facet in the kitchen. Eddie was surprised when the water didn't run out brown. He wrinkled his nose in distaste as Mike leaned his head underneath the water to drink directly from the facet. Eddie had to look away from him before he gagged.

"I have stuff in the van." Eddie said, shaking his arms as if he could shake the phantom feeling of germs off of him as he turned to head back downstairs to the lobby.

"You brought your own cleaning supplies?" Beverly asked in surprise as she followed after him, spinning the keys Ben had tossed her around her finger.

"Of course he did. Eddie Spaghetti is always prepared for anything. Don't you remember his double fanny-pack days?" Richie asked with a laugh. Eddie ignored them, to disturbed by the state of where they would now be living. He had started a running total of illnesses they could catch living there and it was growing longer with every step he took.

"I think that was before my time." Bev said as Eddie shoved open the door and stepped out into the strange city air, his exhaustion gone now that he was on a mission and would do anything to get the chant of dysentery, staph infection, AIDS, tetanus out of his mind.

He had expected everyone else to go to sleep and let him clean by himself but they all ended up helping. Some (Ben) were more useful than others (Richie) but they still managed to get their new home into a state that didn't make Eddie want to barf or his skin crawl by the time dawn came.

By that point they were too exhausted to divide up the living spaces so instead they emptied the van and showered and fell asleep in a big pile of blankets and pillows on their newly cleaned floor like it was any old sleepover they'd had a hundred times before.

As Eddie settled on his blankets in between Bill and Richie he worried for a moment he wouldn't be able to sleep in this new strange place that still wasn't clean enough for his standards but he was so tired he was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

_The band first started playing small shows at dive bars but were quickly spotted by other local artists who invited them to bigger venues and clubs. They soon had a devoted local following that grew steadily with each show that they played._

Days passed and they got furniture and divided up their living space. Mike and Ben took the bedroom to the left, Stan and Bill took the bedroom to the right. They hung curtains over a corner of the main living space of the apartment for Beverly and another in the other corner for Richie and Eddie. It left them very small communal space but the curtains were rarely shut anyway and neither were the bedroom doors. It was really just a division of where their beds were but even that didn't mean they were sleeping in them.

It wasn't uncommon to find Ben asleep on whatever bed he'd been reading on because someone was hanging out in his room on his. Nor was it unusual for them to wake up in the middle of the night because Bill was crawling into their bed after a nightmare, sometimes it was his but more often than not it was because he had heard them thrashing in their sleep and come to comfort them like he used to for Georgie. The Neibolt street nightmares were just another thing they all had in common. It was stranger to see Richie sleeping alone than it was to find Eddie or Beverly, sometimes Stan, squished into his twin-size bed with him. Eddie constantly woke in the middle of the night consumed by feelings of guilt about leaving his mother and the others often found him scrubbing at the tiles in the bathroom or washing dishes in the dark. Whoever found him always brought him back to their bed with him but he would only sleep under the covers with Richie or Bill.

They all lived on top of each other in the apartment, the only time they really gave each other space was in the rehearsal studio. They each managed to find their own spaces near the apartment for when they really needed to get away from all that came with living with six other teenagers. Eddie's quiet place was the roof of their three-story apartment building. It was mainly used by the other tenants as a place to get high or smoke but Eddie was quick to figure out what times people were up there or not. The smoke smell didn't linger badly enough that his asthma (whether it was real or fake) felt triggered. Up there he could see far better than he could on the street level. It wasn't like the openness of Derry but Eddie found he was getting used to the claustrophobic vastness of the city. From the vantage point of the roof he didn't mind it nearly as much.

A week passed and they all found jobs. Eddie got a job in a parking garage a few blocks away and after he had deep cleaned and sanitized the little toll room he stood in all day he found he didn't mind the job very much. It was mind-numbingly dull most of the time but it gave him time to work on writing his music. He also didn't mind having a sheet of glass between him and the rest of the world.

Three more weeks passed and they got their first show, if it could even be called that. It was actually a performance at an open mic night for bands at a seedy bar that was so dirty Eddie's shoes stuck to the floor. There was probably only twenty people in the bar but to Eddie it felt like it was thousands. He was so nervous he threw up, although he chose to do so in the back alley rather than risk going in to what would surely be the most disgusting bathroom Eddie ever saw in his life. His nightmares had enough fodder, he didn't need to give them anymore.

He wasn't sure if the show was good or not, he was so nervous he spent the whole thing facing the back wall rather than the bar itself. Eddie knew that if he turned and saw the faces of who was listening to them, he would forget every note he had ever played. He heard people chuckling and yelling things about his violin when they took the stage, especially when he wouldn't even look over at them. But rather than the things that were yelled as them in high school these things didn't seem vicious. This felt like the people were yelling at him not because he was different from them but because he was different like them.

_**Sam Deveaux** (owner, the Cavalier Bar): You have to understand the 90s were a big time for rock and roll in New York City. I had bands playing in my bar every single night. Most were good, some you went outside to smoke until they finished playing (laughs) Honestly, I don't remember too many of the bands but I remember the Losers. The first time I saw them walk on the stage I thought the kid with the violin had gotten lost. There he was, puffing on an inhaler, before facing the wall like he didn't know which way the audience was. I expected it to sound terrible. I had a cigarette in hand and was halfway out the door when they started playing and I realized I was hearing the start of something big._

Weeks passed and Eddie wrote his mother a letter every day, sending them to their home address in Derry from different mailboxes each time and never with a return address. He had tried to call her from a payphone only once but the sound of her sobs and the angry threats she yelled at him if he didn't come home immediately made him so sick he had to call off work for two days. He couldn't stomach the thought of calling her again after that.

The guilt he felt over abandoning her sat on his chest like a physical weight. Now when the clown attacked him in his nightmares she was there too, snapping his beloved violin over her knee and throwing the pieces at his feet. "This is what they will do to you!" the dream form of his mother would scream. "They will break you and send you back to me to put back together!" He slept so futilely and so little that the apartment that had been so filthy when they first arrived was unrecognizable now with how much he scrubbed it clean, wishing that removing his own guilt was as easy as washing away the years of grease and grime coating the walls.

They started playing more bars at more open mic nights. Every time Eddie told himself this would be the show he stopped facing the wall and each time he realized he was just lying to himself. Richie had begun to tease him about it ("Eddie, I know your ass is great but don't you want people to see your face too?") but Eddie just couldn't bring himself to look at the people listening to them. Their music felt so personal to him he couldn't bear to see their faces if they didn't like it. And he hadn't even shared any of his own lyrics with the group yet.

Summer turned into fall and for the first time in his life that didn't mean buying new pencils and notebooks at the general store. It didn't mean homework and classrooms, no bullies or lockers to fear. For the first time in his life fall could hold whatever he wanted it to.

His eighteenth birthday passed in November and Eddie felt like a weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. He was officially, legally an adult. Now his mother had no recourse to force him to come home. She had no cards left to play other than her overbearing guilt. Eddie called her for the second time on his birthday and she cried and screamed until he ran out of coins. She never even wished him a happy birthday.

Eddie hadn't expected any fuss for his birthday but to his surprise his friends bought him a long black waistcoat that looked like it had come straight out of a Victorian novel. It looked old but it smelled new. Eddie must have looked confused by this because Mike leaned over to whisper to him, "Its secondhand but we took it to the best dry cleaners in the city."

Eddie had never expressed interest in old clothing so he was touched but confused by the gift until Richie helped him put it on and Beverly leaned forward to adjust the collar.

"This is a special coat. This coat will make you invincible on stage." she whispered to him as she brushed invisible dust off his shoulder. She didn't tell him invincible to what but she didn't need too. Eddie knew as well as anybody it was his own fears he needed protecting from.

Eddie curled his hands up into the just slightly too long sleeves of the coat. He knew there was no such things as magical coats but that didn't stop him from asking in a small voice he didn't recognize, "Does it?"

Beverly nodded as she gave him a small smile. "If you believe it does."

The next show they had was the first one they were invited to play, not an open call show where they just showed up. They were opening for another band and it was also the first time they were actually getting paid for a show. It wasn't much but that didn't matter to any of them. They were officially being paid for their music.

Eddie tried to calm down the ball of nerves in his stomach backstage as he pulled on the waistcoat and whispered Beverly's words back to himself. "If you believe it does." He ran his shaking fingers down the front of the coat before grabbing his violin and following the others out.

That night he didn't turn around and face the wall. That night Eddie finally faced the audience they were playing for.

To his surprise they did not look bored, they did not laugh at their music. They actually nodded along, some people danced. To his surprise he saw more than one person mouthing their lyrics. He hadn't known that people had come to enough of their shows to know the words.

Maybe it was the waistcoat, maybe it was the bow in his hand or the violin resting on his shoulder, maybe it was the knowledge that there was no problem the six people he was sharing the stage with couldn't fix. Maybe it was all of it, or maybe it was none of it. No matter what the cause, Eddie really did feel invincible that night.

_**Clarence Clemons** (saxophonist): I caught quite a few of the Loser's early shows. We were both playing open call clubs where any kind of music could play. You got to hear rock and jazz in the same place on the same night, nothing like what you've got these days. Watching them play was mesmerizing. While their music was playing you forgot everything else. Listening to them was like coming home. (laughs) They were a bit of a mess up there though. I remember we used to place bets on if the violin kid would ever face the crowd. I lost twenty bucks the night he finally did. Him turning around though, that was like they reached a whole new level._

The holidays passed and none of them could afford to go home so they took turns at the corner payphone calling their families. Some calls went well, others not so much. Richie ended up getting his parents' machine.

On Hanukkah they set up a menorah with Stan. Christmas came and they exchanged small gifts. Beverly threw away the card her father sent her unopened. Some words were best left unread. Eddie's mother still did not have their address so she had not sent him anything, not that he would have excepted her to send him anything but more guilt and demands he return home.

Watching everyone open their gifts from home became a little too much for Eddie and he slipped out the door with his coat before going to the payphone to call his mother. All she did was cry and shout and Eddie ended up feeling worse after the phone call than he had before. The thought of going back into the warmth of the apartment didn't appeal to him so he headed upstairs to the roof where he sat and watched the people milling by on the street below with detached indifference.

"Don't jump!" a familiar voice called and Eddie looked over his shoulder with a frown as Richie approached him with a grin and a red box in his hands.

"Fudge?" he asked shoving the box under Eddie's nose.

He wrinkled his nose in distaste and turned away, looking down at the street again from the ledge he was leaning against. Eddie really didn't want to eat anything that was made in Richie's messy house but he looked so earnest that Eddie sighed before taking the smallest piece he could find and taking a small nibble of it. The bitter taste of far too much cocoa powder hit his tongue and Eddie fought down the urge to spit it out.

"Terrible right?" Richie asked with a laugh that made Eddie glare at him before he spit over the side of the building after making sure no one was underneath him.

Richie laughed again and threw his arm around Eddie's shoulders, pulling him tightly against his side. "You call that a loogie Eds? This is a loogie!"

Richie proceeded to make a disgusting noise as he hacked and spit over the ledge. Eddie scoffed and shoved him lightly with his elbow.

"Amateur hour." he said with a shake of his head. Soon his sadness was forgotten as they played one of their childhood games long past the point where they could see what they were spitting up.

_**Jeffrey Tesich** (lead guitar, Dark Horse): Oh man we hated the Losers, hated them. We'd been playing in the city for two years and didn't have half the following they made in six months. They came onto the scene and within weeks every other band knew they were gonna beat all of us to the top._

They started to get more invites to play shows, started to get paid for more of them. After Richie's insistent goading Eddie shared one of his songs with the group. 'Gazebos' was angry and bitter and full of thirteen-year-old Eddie angst. The band loved it the first time they heard it and it quickly became part of the set list.

They had just finished playing a set at a popular club, the Wetlands Preserve, late one February night when they were approached by a youngish well-dressed man. The moment Eddie saw him approaching he gripped Richie's sleeve as he was hit by the sudden unshakeable knowledge that everything in their lives was about to change.

The Losers hadn't even been in New York City ten months when they were spotted playing a show at the Wetlands Preserve by Jack Cantori of Duma Records. Cantori was new to the New York music scene but he knew talent when he heard it and he offered the Losers a record deal that very night.

Everything from the moment Jack approached them to the moment they signed their record deal was a surreal blur to Eddie. He knew that they had been signed to a three album deal, promising to record and promote three albums in the next ten years. He knew that if they failed to do so they would owe their label a buttload of money. He knew that if they fulfilled it the label would be paying them a buttload of money. Eddie knew that the proceedings and legal jargon had taken hours, by the time they returned to their apartment the sun was raising. Looking back, he would remember it all passing in seconds, in one brief flash he went from a kid with a dream to an adult with a plan.

They rode the subway back down to their apartment from the office in upper Manhattan and Eddie was in such a shock he didn't even protest at the thought of being cramped into the moving germ box. They made their way home in a stunned silence that broke the moment Ben shut the door to their apartment behind him. Finally alone, the reality of the dream that had just dropped into their laps hit them and they all began to freak out, cheering and jumping on each other in far too loud of voices for that early in the morning. Their downstairs neighbor hit at their floor with a broom and the group finally brought their shouting down to an excited mummer.

Eddie looked around at his friends from where he was sandwiched between Richie and Bill and knew that their faces in this moment was something he would never forget.

Later that day Eddie snuck outside to call his mother and tell her the good news that they were signed by a label but she had only snapped at him in a voice that reminded him uneasily of his nightmares, "This band will be the death of you. You will end up addicted to drugs or with AIDS. You need to come home before it's too late."

When he hung up the payphone all Eddie felt was a sense of dejectedness. He should have known better than to expect her to be happy for him. As he walked back inside he tried to shake off the fear gnawing in his belly that she was right, that the band really would be the death of him.

_**Jack Cantori** (producer, Duma Records): The Losers redefined what it meant to be rock and roll. They had a sound that was unique to only them. No one else on the scene sounded anything like them. No one has since. No one ever will. Some bands are just simply one of a kind. The Losers are one of those bands._

They had eight songs that they felt were polished and good enough to be on their debut album. Jack thought so too since he had already heard half of their songs at the Wetlands Preserve. After they played him the others, he was quick to agree that they should be on the album as well.

That still wasn't enough for a full-length album and Jack didn't want their first album to be any shorter than twelve songs.

"This is your introduction to the musical world." he told them, leveling all of them with his intense stare. "Make them remember you."

None of them slept very much in the following weeks, all of them desperately trying to write songs that they felt were good enough to share with the whole world. That was a much bigger audience than the ones they had been playing for in the clubs. They rejected Eddie's ballad 'security blanket' to which he was both stung and relieved. Even he knew the song wasn't very good. The group rejected Mike's 'burning' later that same day so at the very least he didn't have to wallow in his shame alone.

Richie and Eddie tried their hand at writing a song together and the end result was a half-finished jumble of trash and insults. They didn't even bother with showing the rest of the band before chucking the torn scribbled on notebook pages into the trash.

In the end it took them three sleepless weeks to come up with another five songs bringing their total up to thirteen, Jack's requested twelve and one more for good luck.

_To date the Losers are the most successful artists Cantori ever signed._

The recording studio was like a whole new world for all of them. Eddie had never seen such a pristine space before and he felt his very soul relax at the clean order of the sound booths. The group stood and looked through the glass over the rows of buttons and switches on the soundboard that none of them had any idea what they were for. Thankfully their sound editor, Jon 'call me Stebbins or nothing at all' Stebbins, did.

While he and Jack conversed, the group stood in a line and stared into the studio, leaning so close to the glass their breath fogged it up.

"Do you think this makes us sell outs?" Stan asked softly, pulling Eddie's eyes away from the pristine room to look over at him curiously.

"Sellouts to what?" Richie asked with a scoff.

"To like the heart of rock and roll or whatever." Stan shrugged, shifting under the weight of all of their thoughtful looks.

"I think we're playing our music." Mike finally said thoughtfully. "I think as long as we stay true to ourselves we're not sellouts."

_**Jon Stebbins** (sound editor): The first time I met the band they were just kids. Jack had told me they were young but he didn't tell me how young. Jack was still pretty new to the label so I didn't fully trust his taste yet. When I first saw those kids go into the recording booth I was sure Jack had just signed his last band, that was how bad I expected them to sound. I have lost a lot of money betting against them._

Recording the album was the most fun Eddie had ever had and also the littlest sleep he had ever gotten. They had all quit their day jobs having already received some money from the label. Once Jack had learned about their living situation, he was appalled at so many people living in one space and offered to help them find their own apartments. They were spending so little time there, and what little time they did they were asleep, that they refused. They'd worry about moving when the album was done.

Things in the apartment were even more chaotic than before. There was never any silence to be had. Someone was always playing something, singing something. Silence was a thing of the past as they stayed in the studio through the night, the others throwing back coffee in a way that made Eddie worry for their hearts while he sipped on herbal tea. His excitement was more than enough to get him through the sleepless nights.

They hadn't finished recording the album yet when Jack introduced them to their manager, Stuart Redman. While Jack would be helping them with the recordings and productions of their music Stuart was the one who would be taking over booking their shows, getting them interviews, planning their tour and the like. Eddie didn't have the heart to admit he hadn't realized a producer didn't do those things. He didn't want either man to know how naïve he was. Stuart was a noticeable difference from Jack's high energy. The man was like a calm sea after a storm. Eddie trusted him entirely by the end of their first meeting.

They were still playing weekly shows, testing out their new songs on their ever-growing crowds. They weren't just playing 'show up and play' bars anymore, although they did go to a few of those just because they liked them. Stuart was getting them headlining gigs at small clubs and venues. They were starting to play on stages bigger than their apartment and their album hadn't even come out yet.

_**Emily Jackson** (director): I never saw it, the appeal of the Losers. I worked with them before their first album had even come out and already they were arrogant and entitled. They are the reason I stopped working with rock bands and went solely into pop. At least popstars know they're entitled._

"I need more energy guys!" their director, Emily, called waving her hands in an upward motion to indicate how much more energy she wanted.

Pulling uncomfortably at the tie around his neck Eddie looked around at the others where they were scattered around the set.

They were approaching hour five of filming their first ever music video for their first ever single and Eddie was beginning to think he didn't have very much energy left.

The set they were on was made to look like a room at a trashed party which Eddie found ironic since the only party they had ever been invited to they were the ones that got trashed. The room might have been a mess but none of them were. They were all dressed in suits and ties, even Beverly who had refused to wear the bright red dress the director had brought for her. Eddie didn't know what kind of vision the director had for the video but it was clear to all of them that it was not one that any of them ever would have had. Apparently, the director of their music video thought that their band name was simply ironic.

"Dude this fucking sucks." Richie said with a groan as he ran his hands through his hair, making it stick out in all directions. Eddie couldn't remember the last time he had let Beverly cut it.

"We never would have been at a party." Ben agreed, looking around the room with something that Eddie couldn't tell was longing or resentment.

"Not without looking like the room at least." Stan agreed, poking a discarded plastic cup on the ground with his foot. Eddie had been purposely not looking around the set they were in, the mess was making his skin crawl no matter how many times he told himself it was staged to look like this. Those cups hadn't really been drunken out of, no germs were clinging to their rims ready to make their way onto his skin and through his blood stream. Killing him before he had the chance to really live.

"So, let's look like the room." Beverly said pulling Eddie from his dark thoughts. He looked over at her where she sat behind her new label provided drum kit as she ran the back of her hand across her mouth and mussed up the bright lipstick the director had insisted she wear.

"Guys! What's the problem?" Emily cried, stepping onto the set to glare at them with her hands on her hips.

"This is your v-v-version of us." Bill said stiffly as he struggled to take off his suit jacket without removing his guitar. "N-n-not ours."

Emily protested as they all began to shed the fine clothes she had forced them into, each of them becoming more and more disheveled the more she objected. Eddie removed his tie with a grateful sigh before folding it neatly and placing it in the pocket of his suit jacket. He unbuttoned the top button of the shirt and rolled his shoulders, feeling like he could finally breath again.

He was content with removing that much of the stiff outfit, the others not so much. Most of them removed the ties and jackets, Bill even removed the button up to just wear the t-shirt he'd had underneath it. Stan let the tie hang loosely from around his neck and Mike unbuttoned the button up to let it flap open around him like wings. Ben removed his tie and suit jacket but kept the button up on and buttoned. Other than removing the worst of her makeup Bev stayed in the pristine suit she'd had to fight so hard to get to wear.

Richie was the worst. He shed not only the jacket and the button up but his t-shirt as well, leaving him bare-chested with his bass hanging low around his waist. To make things worse he had tied his tie around his forehead like a bandanna, causing his overgrown hair to fluff up around it messily.

It had only taken them two minutes to destroy the wardrobe and makeup teams' hours long work. Eddie would have felt bad about it but he felt too much more relaxed now to care.

"Fine! We'll try it your way." Emily cried, throwing her hands up into the air like it had been her idea all along. Eddie and Bill rolled their eyes at each other as she walked back off the stage.

"Wait!" Richie suddenly cried, just as she was just about to call for playback on their song. She glared at him as he held up a finger to ask for a minute. "Just one more thing."

Richie began to cross the messy set towards him and Eddie watched him with a curious look that quickly turned weary as he approached him. "What are yo-" Eddie cut himself off as Richie got right into his space, his body only a few inches away. Eddie had to lean his head back to meet his eyes and he silently cursed himself for not being taller and tried to ignore the racing of his heart. Apparently, he was more nervous by this messy room than he had thought.

Richie rose his hands to Eddie scalp, running his fingers gently through the hair that Eddie had Bev trim every six weeks. Eddie had to fight to not close his eyes against the sensation but thankfully the feeling quickly passed as Richie suddenly moved his hands vigorously, making Eddie's short hair in as much of a disarray as he could manage.

"Seriously asshole?" Eddie asked with a sigh as Richie pulled back to admire his handiwork.

"Now we're ready!" Richie called out loudly, completely ignoring both Eddie's annoyance and the director's blocking that had him across the room. He chose instead to stay next to Eddie during the next playback and recording of the song.

Eddie didn't know if Emily liked their version more or if she was just done with them but she only had them do the playback two more times before calling a wrap on the shoot.

"She's totally not going to use that footage." Beverly said on the subway ride back to the apartment from where her and Ben had his headphones propped up on their shoulders so they could both listen to the headset at the same time. Eddie didn't recognize the tinny pop sounding music coming from it as he stood in the aisle holding onto one of the straps dangling from the ceiling with a handkerchief wrapped around his hand so he didn't have to touch it with his bare skin. He missed the cold weather that gave him an excuse to keep his gloves on when he rode public transportation.

"We s-s-still tried." Bill shrugged, looking out the window at the dark tunnel they were speeding through. "T-t-that's important too."

_The Loser's first single, the group written 'Welcome to the loser's club!' was an overnight success. It debuted at number one on Billboard's alternative rock chart and stayed there for twenty-three consecutive weeks making it the longest running single in the chart's history._

To their surprise the director did use the footage of them in their messy clothes, she also used the footage of them making themselves messy that none of them had realized she was taping. The video started with them looking nice and polished before turning themselves into a mess at the instrumental break after the first verse.

The first time he saw the video in Jack's office Eddie felt himself turn red as he watched Richie mess his hair up on the little screen. He hadn't thought that Richie was standing that closely to him that day but in the video it looked like you'd have a hard time fitting your hand between their faces.

Eddie had a sudden flash of fear for what his mother would say when she saw it before he remembered that she most likely wouldn't watch it. The last time they had spoken she told him again to quit 'this silly band' although now she was also telling him how the high school was looking for a new music teacher. She told him this was the perfect way for him to still play music and come home. She'd talked over him every time he tried to speak, she was so intent on describing to him her perfect world. Eddie had hung up the phone and placed a hand on his abdomen, certain that he could feel the ulcer he knew he had growing.

'Welcome to the losers' club!' dropped the very next day, their very first single and music video went out into the world for their grand debut. Eddie suddenly felt like they were about to really learn the meaning of the phrase 'sink or swim.'

_**Phillip Boone (photographer):** They were kids. That was the first thing I thought when I met the band. Even know that's the only way I can think of them. Seven kids trying to make it big in a city that wouldn't blink while it ate them alive._

Despite how little the band themselves liked the video the video was getting major playtime on MTV. The song itself was a number one hit as Jack liked to constantly remind them.

Thankfully, the photoshoot for their album cover went a lot better than their disastrous music video shoot.

Their photographer, Phillip, took them to a part of the city Eddie had never been to before. It was an industrial part of town and in the town car on the way over Eddie tried to keep a map of the roads they had taken in his head in case they got to their destination and it turned out that Phillip was just looking for a deserted place to murder them.

It turned out he was looking for a deserted place, but not for any nefarious reasons. He wanted the backdrop behind them to be big metal buildings because as he said, "Their sound was big and everyone should know it!"

They got to wear their own clothes for the shoot which was probably the best part about it. They weren't forced into frills and images that weren't their own. They looked like the misfit teenagers they were and rather than the buildings making their music seem big it really just made it look like they were in over their heads.

Countless photos must have been taken that day; the click of Phillip's camera shutter echoed in Eddie's dreams that night. By the end of the first hour they were all getting a little antsy and Richie leaned over to pinch Eddie's cheek, causing him to glare at him although its bite was reduced by the small smile Eddie could feel forming on his face.

"Smile Eduardo!" he said with a cheeky grin of his own that caused the others to look over at them and roll their eyes or laugh. "We can't have people thinking we're too serious!"

Of all the numerous photos taken that day the one where Richie was pinching his cheek was the photo the label picked for the album.

The seven of them were standing in a line, the large box like buildings stretching for what seemed like miles around and above them. Mike stood in the center with Bill leaning against his arm, both with grins on their faces as they looked over to their left. Stan stood on Bill's other side, a look of exasperation clear on his features. Ben stood beside him, the only one looking at the camera but his fond smile due to the actions of the other around him. Beverly stood beside Mike, her hand over her mouth not quite hiding her smile as she looked at a wildly grinning Richie beside her where he was pinching Eddie's cheek. Eddie was caught between a glare and a smile which was probably the expression he looked at Richie with the most.

It was the first time Eddie had ever saw himself in a picture and truly thought that he looked like himself.

_The Losers first album, Lov(s)er released on June 9, 1995._

Every single day in the last two weeks of May felt more surreal than the last.

First Stuart told them that they needed to get passports so he could add venues in Mexico and Canada while he mapped out the dates of their solo tour for later that year. Next, he informed them that before they went on their own tour he had signed them up to play on Warped tour, a new traveling rock music festival that was debuting that year. He had managed to pull some strings to get them onto it last minute, the drawback was that they would have to drive the small bus he had managed to procure for them themselves and haul their equipment on their own as there was barely enough space on the bus for the seven of them let alone any roadies.

Eddie hadn't even known that bands didn't set up their own equipment. It felt like with each passing day he was realizing how little he really knew about the music industry.

Likely the most memorable thing to happen in those two weeks was their first ever interview. It was for a small local music magazine that only released in New York City but they were all so nervous one would have thought they were being interviewed by the Rolling Stone.

Eddie was full of so much nervous energy he tried to only answer questions that were directed at him so that he didn't cut off the rest of the group by going on a nervous tirade for hours. As it was Richie was rambling enough for all of them.

"What was the inspiration behind the album title?" their interviewer, Vince, asked curiously, looking at all of their faces with interest where they sat piled on the two couches across from him in one of the meeting rooms at Duma's offices.

"It's from when I broke my arm as a kid." Eddie said quickly, not sure of what would come out of Richie's mouth and wanting to cut him off before he had the chance to say something truly stupid. "A girl in our class wrote 'loser' on it and I wrote a 'v' over the 's' to turn it into 'lover'."

"Was that type of bullying common for you?" Vince asked, his eyes sympathetic but not pitying, like he too had been bullied as a child.

"That was nothing." Eddie shrugged, the comment on his cast did not bother him nearly as much now as it did when it happened. He had faced far worse than a word on his arm before and since.

"How did you break your arm?" Vince asked innocently, not aware of the grenade he had just lobbed at their feet.

It felt like all of the air had been sucked from the room. Eddie realized with a flash of panic that they had never discussed whether they would mention what had happened to them with the clown when they were children. He didn't know if they wanted to be known as the band who killed a murderer when they were thirteen but Eddie did know he was not about to make that decision for all of them.

"Fell off my bike." Eddie said stiffly, digging his fingers into Richie's arm where he sat near half on top of him on the couch four of them had themselves squeezed into. For once Richie took the hint and didn't say the words he was clearly dying to say although he did dig his fingers into Eddie's thigh in retaliation. Eddie refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing him wince.

If Vince noticed everyone visibly relaxing in relief at Eddie's lie he didn't comment on it.

He tapped his pen against his notepad, scanning the questions he'd written there before looking up at them with a grin, "I'm curious, how do you pronounce the title?"

Eddie's brow crinkled in confusion at the question until he heard six different responses come out of his friend's mouths.

"It's loser with a silent 'v'!" Richie laughed.

"Lov-ser" Mike declared.

"Los-ver." Stan contested.

"It's like lover/loser. Like you say both." Beverly admitted.

"It's just loser." Ben shrugged

"Lover. The s-s-s is there for p-p-print only." Bill said wisely. This was the one that Eddie agreed with, this was what he had thought they had all known the album was called. Apparently, that was not the case.

"Oh my fucking god." Eddie whispered, leaning forward so he could look at all of them in abject horror. "Are you fucking kidding me right now?"

They all looked at each other and then at Eddie sheepishly while Vince watched them with thinly veiled amusement.

"None of us ever said the title aloud?" Eddie asked, his voice going up in pitch as he looked at the others with a growing sense of hysteria.

"That's so fucking stupid." Richie suddenly burst out laughing as he shoved Stan on his other side. "Why the fuck would we call it 'los-ver' that's not even a word."

"Who ever heard of a silent 'v'?" Stan snapped back immediately.

"This is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard." Eddie admitted, leaning back to rest his head against the back of the couch and stare up at the ceiling dejectedly as the others began to laugh around him. Their laughter was contagious and before he knew it Eddie was laughing with them, Richie's head knocking against his knees as he slid off the couch onto the floor he was laughing so hard.

"I guess you can pronounce the title whatever way you want to." Mike finally said with a shrug, being the first to regain control of himself, as he tried desperately to get the group back under control of themselves to finish the interview.

_**Richie Tozier **(bassist, the Losers): Like I've said for years, it's pronounced 'loser' the 'v' is silent._

_**Ben Hanscom** (rhythm guitarist, the Losers): It's just 'lover'._

_**Bill Denbrough** (guitarist, the Losers): I can't go through this again._

_**Beverly:** For the love of god don't open this can of worms with the others._

_**Stanley Uris** (keyboardist, the Losers): (softly) Don't. Just fucking don't._

_(it should be noted that when asked the same question on how to pronounce their first album's title, Kaspbrak and Hanlon refused to answer)_

Stuart wasn't kidding about how small the bus he had found for them was, it was more like a really big van with beds than a real bus. There were only six bunks and a small sitting space in the front with enough seats for six people. There was a bathroom in the back that the very thought of was making Eddie want to drown in bleach and two cupboards for food. Their equipment all fit in the bus's undercarriage storage but it was a tight squeeze since they had to carry all their amps. Thankfully the label had provided them enough funds before the album release to purchase new equipment. Eddie had bought a new amp but he refused to replace his battered violin.

Warped tour began in southern California so they had to drive out there to begin the tour where they would be driving for over ten weeks to play in shows across the country. Their album released while they were passing through New Mexico and they spent three hours driving around Santa Fe looking for a record store that carried it so they could all buy a copy. The clerk at the record store recognized them from the album photo and asked them all to sign a CD for her, "Just in case you end up famous one day."

Eddie had never expected anyone to ask for his autograph and he signed his name with even more care than he had when he opened his first bank account.

None of them had ever been further than New York and the scraps of the country they got to see as they drove amazed Eddie. He had never fully understood how vast a dessert was until he saw it with his own two eyes, never understood how oppressing the heat was until he felt it. He hadn't really thought there would be a difference between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific until after he had stood in both of them.

They took turns driving and Eddie soon found that he could not sleep when Richie drove, his lane changes were too sudden and he took exit ramps so quickly Eddie was surprised they hadn't tipped over. Eddie had tried to get him voted off of driving privileges but no one really wanted to pick up more hours of it and they said it wasn't fair for Eddie to drive two shifts. So, Richie got to keep his driving privileges but they were regulated to night time when there was less drivers on the road and Eddie decided that if he was going to risk certain death by Richie Tozier's driving he wanted to at least see it coming.

Which was how every three nights Eddie found himself curled up in the front seat beside the driver's seat, the only two seats in the bus with seatbelts. They passed the time the way they always had, talking about anything and everything that came to mind. Eddie had never had many barriers with Richie, he had always been able to say exactly what he was thinking to him, likely because he knew Richie didn't filter anything he said back. Somehow, in the darkness of the bus Eddie found himself shedding the last few secrets he had from Richie, confessing for the first time the guilt he felt over leaving his mother behind. In turn, Richie admitted he kept waiting to hear the punchline to their lives, certain that what was happening to them right now was all one big elaborate joke. It was easier to talk like this, in the dark with nothing between them but the open road. Each morning when the sun rose Eddie half expected thing between him and Richie to feel strange now that they were looking at each other with all these exposed secrets in the light of day. But everything felt the same as it always had. He felt so lucky to have someone in his life who saw all the worst and darkest parts of him and did not flinch away from the sight. Some days it felt even luckier than their record deal to Eddie.

Their first shows were on smaller stages on the outskirts of the festival. Lugging their equipment all the way from the parking lot to their stages was more of a workout than any gym class Eddie had ever taken. As the shows progressed their audience got bigger and bigger and they were moved closer to the main stage. On the last tour date in August once again back in California after having made a full loop of the country, the Losers played the main stage at midday drawing a crowd so large and vast Eddie couldn't see the end of it.

While the tour was undoubtedly good for their music exposure and parts of it were even fun the tour as a whole was not easy for Eddie. Not only did he have to deal with the thought of a traveling bathroom and Richie's driving but the fact that they often drove through the night. The funny thing about showers on moving vehicles was that they had to be plugged into a water source to work which meant that they nights they drove through Eddie was not able to shower. He had to instead wipe his sweaty skin down with baby wipes and slather himself with hand sanitizer.

Not only that but there were people, everywhere, all the time. After their shows they had a small table where they sold their CDs and some shirts that Stuart had sent them on tour with. By the end of June they had run out of merchandise and had to arrange to pick up a shipment Stuart sent over at their stop in Denver. Eddie didn't mind selling the merchandise, it promoted his band after all. What he minded was the way that the people who bought it wanted to touch him, giving him high-fives or hugs, or to pose for photographs. These people were paying to listen to his music, Eddie could never say no to them no matter how much all the contact was making his insides squirm, certain that he was going to contract a fatal illness.

He knew that all of the sun exposure couldn't be good for his skin and Eddie was religiously putting on sunscreen every fifty minutes. That, plus the waistcoat he was still wearing to every show, kept him from getting sunburned unlike most of the others. All it took was one week of being bright red for Bev to start joining Eddie in sunscreen time.

The only problem with wearing his coat was the heat. The coat was not made for warmth but for showmanship but it was still a lightly lined black coat that he was wearing outside in the heart of summer. It was like carrying a heater on his body and Eddie constantly felt he was drowning in sweat. As such he wanted to dry clean the coat after every show but not all towns had dry cleaners near the venues and the ones that did weren't always able to rush his cleaning, even when he offered to pay triple.

To say that Eddie was relieved when the tour ended and they finally made it back to their apartment was a bit of an understatement. He took the longest hottest shower of his life and it was the first time in weeks he didn't feel out of place in his own body.

_The band built their audience with extensive back to back tours. The longer their tours went on the more venues they sold out_.

They had five days from their return to the city and the start of their first solo tour. Five days where Eddie showered three or four times a day like he could stockpile showers to get him through the looming nine months they were about to be on the road.

On the plus side, they would not be driving themselves or lugging their own equipment now. After their success at Warped tour Jack and Stuart convinced the label to splurge on them more, providing them with a bigger bus with a driver and three roadies who would be following along behind them on the bus that had been their home for the last few months.

The tour passed much the same as the one they were just on. The major differences, other than their added help, was the growth of the crowd. Each night Eddie was surprised by just how many people had come to see them. Each night he scrubbed sanitizer into his skin to try to rid himself of the feeling of their germs all over him.

As they settled into their life on tour Eddie found himself starting to work on new material, and he was not the only one. They passed the long days on the bus writing new songs and throwing out melodies for someone to craft the lyrics too. It was stranger for the bus to be silent than it was for it to be full of conflicting music as more than one person was trying to fine tune a new song.

Eddie had to appreciate their bus driver, Ricky Vinton, he handled their chaotic sound way better than Eddie himself ever would have. Most of the time he wasn't even listening to them, he was just humming along to whatever Beatles CD he had playing at a low enough volume it didn't conflict with whatever the band was creating.

The label had provided them with cellphones before they left on tour so that they could reach them in case of an emergency. Eddie had never seen the big boxy phones in real life before and he still couldn't get over how heavy it felt in his hand. He had heard that the radiation from cell phones could leak into your brain and give you cancer so he kept his cell phone in a drawer in the kitchen. The majority of the people he would be calling on it were already with him anyway.

He called his mother from a payphone every day and sent her postcards in every town they stopped in. She still refused to accept that this was his life now, waring between begging him to come home and threatening to show up at a show and drag him home herself. She sounded like she meant it but considering the fact that she hadn't left Derry in over twenty years Eddie didn't take her threats very seriously.

He should have.

_**Eddie Kaspbrak** (violinist, the Losers): Tour was the hardest part for me, out of everything. Tours were like the bane of my existence. I don't know if I could survive today if we went on one. I don't know how I survived then. I still can't believe we didn't all catch a disease or get driven off the road. I'm pretty sure I went into that first tour with the thought that I wouldn't be coming back from it alive._

They returned to Maine for the first time in nearly two years to play shows in both Portland and Bangor. Bangor was only an hour away from Derry and Eddie had considered going back to see his mother before deciding that she would probably guilt him into staying and he wanted to play music more than he wanted to ease this guilt eating away at his insides.

At this rate he was going to die from an ulcer exploding by the time he was twenty-five. He supposed most musicians did have a rate of dying young so at least he would fit in with something then.

The show went as well as all the others had, Eddie could barely hear his violin over the roar of the crowd. When they played their final song of the evening, 'Welcome to the losers' club!', the crowd screamed the last line even louder than the band did.

Eddie followed the others off the stage, nearly bouncing from all the adrenaline coursing through his blood stream. He was laughing as he followed after Stan into the green room backstage and he winced as he walked straight into Stan's back where he stood rigidly frozen in the doorway.

"What's wrong?" Ben asked in concern as Stan looked down at Eddie with his eyes wide in fear.

Eddie gulped as he leaned around Stan to look into the room his stomach falling into his shoes as he saw his mother standing in the middle of the room and looking very much out of place.

Eddie didn't know whether he wanted to rush into his mother's arms or run as far and as fast as he could away from her but he didn't get to make the decision as she let out a yelp at the sight of him and rushed forward, knocking Stan backwards into the door and pulling Eddie against her in a suffocating embrace.

He had grown since he had last seen her and he was just slightly taller than her now, a fact that he would notice only later when he replayed the encounter over and over in his mind.

His mother pulled back suddenly to take his face in his hands and look at him with tears in her eyes. "I've missed you so much." she sniffed and Eddie suddenly felt like he was eight years old again.

"I've missed you too Mom." his voice sounded small and he hated it but at least he remembered at the last second not to call her 'mommy'. Eddie didn't like to give Richie any more teasing fodder than he had too.

Sonia dropped her hands off his face and Eddie was just about to ask her how she had gotten backstage when she pulled her hand back and slapped him soundly across the face.

Eddie reeled backwards, more from the shock than the weight of the blow and stared at his mother with his mouth open. He heard the others shout out cries of protest but their words didn't quite reach his ears as Sonia wrapped her hand around his arm and pulled him tight against her.

"I have had enough of this." she panted as she tried to shove her way past his friends who were crowding them into the doorway. "You've probably ruined your hearing with the awful music and who knows what diseases you're carrying now." Eddie didn't have to be looking at his mother to know she was glaring at Beverly when she said that. "You're coming home with me right now."

The shock finally wore off as her words sunk in and Eddie dug his heels into the ground refusing to be moved anymore. "No, mom, I'm not." his voice still sounded small but at least it sounded firm enough for his mother to look over at him in shock. He might have been wracked with guilt for the past year but that didn't mean he was just going to give up everything they had worked for because she told him to.

"This is not real life Eddie!" she cried, throwing a hand wide to indicate the stage and nearly slapping Mike in the process. He ducked just in time as she continued. "These heathens are leading you on a path that will kill you!"

"It's my life." Eddie said firmly, trying to shake her hand from his arm. Her words were reminding him so much of his nightmares that he had to remind himself that this was real. This was really happening. "These are my friends and this is my choice."

"They've got you under some kind of spell." Sonia wailed, raising her hand to Eddie's face again, not to slap him this time but to peer closely at his eyes. "They've turned you against me."

"You did that all on your own." Richie spit out angrily before Eddie could speak in their defense.

Sonia turned her formidable glare over to Richie who matched her stare with equal heat. "You." Sonia all but growled, "You think I don't see the way you look at my son? You think I don't know what it means?"

Eddie looked up at her in confusion, Richie looked at him the same way Richie looked at everyone else. He wasn't about to let his mother insult his friends like this. Why couldn't she just be happy for him for once in his life? Why couldn't she just understand that he had made a decision that was his to make and she didn't get to change it just because she didn't like it?

"I'm not going home with you mom." Eddie said sternly, finally succeeding in getting out of her grip. "I'm never going there again." Eddie declared hotly even though he knew when he said it that it wasn't true. It would at least be a while before he returned to Derry though if this was how she was going to act.

"You need to leave Mrs. Kaspbrak." Bill decided in a tone that left no room for argument. Eddie would not realize until later that Bill did not stutter when he said it.

"You can't keep me from my son!" she snapped, trying to grab Eddie and pull him towards her again but Richie and Stan reached him first, pulling him back into the safety of their arms.

His heart was beating a mile a minute as he watched his mother's eyes fill with tears as she began to sob in earnest. Her next words made frequent appearances in his nightmares over the years, "What happened to my sweet boy? You are not the son I had."

_**Freddy Dention** (head of security, Bangor stadium): I've never talked about that night in near two decades, I'm not about to talk about it now. Those kids lived under a microscopic enough as it is without me adding to it._

Mike had to run and get security to get Sonia to leave. Eddie knew this, he was there for it and they had told him this, but he did not really remember it. He remembered her being there and then he remembered her being gone as he sat on the hideous plaid couch in the green room and tried to drag air into lungs that refused to hold it.

Eddie drew rapid puffs on his inhaler as he tried to tell himself it was just an asthma attack, he did not have lung cancer. This was not the start of a heart attack. He did not have some rare blood disease that was causing all of his functions to shut down. He leaned his head down between his knees and tried to remember how to breath. Had he always had to think before he did that? When did his body stop knowing what to do to keep him alive? Was this his punishment for not being a good son?

"Hey Eddie! Eddiekins." Richie's voice broke through to his thoughts and he felt Richie's cool hands suddenly press against his cheeks, angling his face up enough so that he could meet his eyes where Richie was kneeling in front of him. Richie didn't say anything else but just his touch was enough to ground Eddie back to reality and for his lungs to remember how they were supposed to work.

Richie stayed there holding his face for the space of several breaths until Eddie finally got his breathing back under control. He felt a vivid flashback to that day in Neibolt where he had been so certain he was going to die. Richie had grabbed his face to make him look at him then too. Something about the familiarity of that made Eddie's lungs loosen even further but it did nothing to untighten the fist of guilt slowly clenching around his heart.

"Maybe I should have gone with her." Eddie whispered, hating the words, hating more the way they sounded.

"Don't say shit like that." Richie said forcefully, his fingers digging into the bruise forming on Eddie's cheek and making him wince. "This is where you are meant to be."

Eddie blinked in surprise at the sincerity in Richie's eyes before looking away long enough to look at everyone else in the room. They were looking at him with a concern he had never seen on his mother's face. Eddie nodded slowly as he looked back at Richie and felt the truth of the words sink into him.

"This is where I'm meant to be." he whispered in agreement.

_No matter how you pronounce it, Lov(s)er is one of the band's most loved albums by both fans and critics alike. The album contains two of their most popular songs, 'Welcome to the losers' club!' and the group written 'summertime of 1989' which both hit number one on Billboard's top alternative chart. 'S.S. Georgie', written by Bill Denbrough, also appeared in the top ten chart._

This time they had two weeks to relax when their tour ended before Jack sent them right back onto the road for what was now called Van's Warped tour, named after their biggest sponsor. They got to keep their bus and their driver and the roadies came right back on tour with them. They knew some of the bands from last year and by this point Eddie was more used to his baby wipe hand sanitizer showers than real showers so it wasn't hard to get back into the swing of being on the road.

Eddie still sent his mother postcards but he had yet to work up the nerve to call her, he didn't think he would be able to hear the pain in her voice. By the time Warped tour ended and they returned to their apartment Eddie had yet to call her once.

They had two big issues they had to deal with now that there were no tours in their immediate future.

One-they needed to start recording their next album to which they had already written eleven songs for. Eddie and Richie had spent a few sleepless nights trying to write one together but the end effect was so bad it made even Ben, who had never laughed at anyone's bad lyrics, crack a smile.

Two-they needed to find a new place to live as they had given up their group apartment back before their solo tour and had been staying on hotels or the tour bus ever sense.

The sales from their album left them with enough money that they all could have lived alone if they wanted to but none of them felt secure enough in their success to trust that. They all still felt like the other shoe was going to drop at any moment revealing the past year of their lives to be a hoax, a long-con joke that they were the butt of.

Eddie wasn't surprised when Bill and Stan decided to rent an apartment together but it still filled him with nerves. Bill was his oldest friend, he knew if anyone could handle his neurosis it was him. Stan could be just as anal as Eddie sometimes so they would have worked well as roommates. Even with two of his options gone it wasn't until Mike and Ben rented a place a few blocks from them that Eddie really felt himself beginning to panic.

Late one afternoon Eddie went with Beverly and Richie to an apartment building that was nestled on the block behind Mike and Ben's. The clean white walls made Eddie feel right at home but he shook the thought quickly from his mind. He knew that Beverly and Richie had only invited him along because they felt bad for him. Or maybe they just wanted his critical eye to inspect the cleanliness of the place before they signed a lease. The building did look nice, maybe Eddie could find a studio here too.

Eddie loitered in the kitchen while the realtor lead Beverly to look at the bedrooms. He fussed with the faucet and was in the middle of checking the stove burners when Richie suddenly appeared at his elbow.

"Aren't you going to look at your room?" he asked curiously, leaning over to hover his hand over the lit burn with a cheeky grin as Eddie slapped his hand away.

"My what?" Eddie asked, his brow wrinkled in confusion.

"Your room." Richie repeated slowly like he was trying to get Eddie to understand him underwater like they used to do when they were kids in the public pool until Bowers had tried to drown them both one summer. That was when they moved their swimming solely to the quarry. The fun of talking underwater was gone after that.

"You want me to live here?" Eddie asked in surprise, hoping the emotion suddenly choking his chest wasn't too apparent in his voice.

"Duh." Richie said leaning over to flick Eddie's noise. "Why else would we be looking at a three bedroom? I know you'll miss me Eddiekins but I just don't want to share again."

Eddie blushed as he thought of all the self-deprecating reasons he had come up with for them bringing him here and instead followed after Richie down the hallway to where two bedrooms sat side by side.

"That one has its own bathroom." Richie said point to the one on the left. "You've done enough chemical baths. You deserve it."

Eddie elbowed him in the side at the dig but the thoughtfulness of it wasn't lost to him.

_**Beverly**: Even with all the success we were still very much codependent. The older we got the worse it got. We spent so much time together in such a small space while on tour you think we'd be sick of each other when but instead in the times we weren't on tour we missed each other too much at all this sudden space we had. I think we are scared. We were afraid that at any moment it would all get taken away. None of us really wanted it to end._

They moved in three days later after their furniture had been delivered. After spending four hours with Eddie in the furniture store while he spoke with the clerk about lumber support Richie and Bev vowed to never go shopping with him again.

That night was the first night Eddie got to lay in his own bed in his own room since they left Derry. He lay under the covers and expected sleep to take over him immediately but instead he found himself growing increasingly on edge with every passing minute.

He had grown used to sleeping to the sound of an engine or other people breathing. His new room suddenly felt too big and too empty. Eddie threw the blankets off his legs and stood, not really sure what he was planning on doing but knowing he couldn't lay in silence for another moment.

Eddie slipped out of his bedroom door just as the one beside his opened and Richie blinked at him, trying to make him out in the dark without his glasses on.

"Can't sleep either?" Beverly's soft voice pulled their attention to the couch where she was curled in a ball with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

"It's too quiet." Eddie admitted at the same time Richie said, "Can't sleep alone. Used to having babes with me."

"What babes?" Eddie rolled his eyes. "We've been living together for years. You've never had any babes sleep with you."

"Nu uh." Richie said wrapping his arms around Eddie's waist to pull him to his side. "I've had you."

Eddie shoved him off him before helping him pick his way through the dark to the couch ("You should really wear your glasses, this is how tons of accidents happen.") where Bev opened her blanket to let them cuddle up next to her. There, lulled by the sound of each other's warmth and breathing, they all finally drifted off to sleep.

_The album earned three Grammy nominations including best new artist, best rock performance by a duo or group with vocal for 'Welcome to the loser's club!', and best alternative music album. 'Summertime of 1989' was nominated and won MTV music awards 'Best new artist in a video' in 1996._

Eddie knew that they were a popular band, he saw the crowds at their shows. He knew that they were successful; Jack was constantly telling them their song was still a number one hit, or that they had now sold some new higher number of records. Even still Eddie didn't stop thinking the whole thing was a hoax until they got their Grammy nominations when they were in the middle of recording their second album.

The Grammys were like nothing Eddie had ever experienced, and that wasn't just because he had never worn a tux before. None of the losers had gone to prom, they felt no reason to give their classmates yet another opportunity to attack them, especially after the events in the Keene house. The Grammys felt a little bit like their prom and they were all bundles of nervous energy the whole night.

They lost best new artist and alternative music album which Eddie had told them would happen. ("They're not going to give out an award for an album no one knows how to fucking pronounce.") He had actually expected to lose all three categories, not that he minded. Being nominated was a thrill enough.

None of them were really expecting to win so when the Losers were announced as the winners of best rock performance by a duo or group with vocal for a long moment none of them moved. Richie recovered first, jumping to his feet and thrusting his fists into the air before pulling a stunned Bill and Eddie to their feet on either side of him. Eddie was so numb with shock it was a wonder that he didn't trip on the stairs and faceplant.

Mike's speech was sincere and thoughtful and Eddie really liked it when he eventually saw a recording of it on a talk show the next morning. When Mike was actually saying it all Eddie heard was a buzzing in his ears as he looked out from the stage in shock. Even through his haze the closing line of Mike's speech did make it through to him, the same closing line as the song they had just won a Grammy for, the same line they always screamed themselves hoarse over at shows.

"The thing about being a loser is, you don't have anything to lose."

_Not even three weeks after their first Grammy win the Losers released their second album. Clubhouse debuted on March 12, 1997. The album was a rousing success, debuting in Billboard's top 100 and within a week their album sales were double that of Lov(s)er._

Things seemed easier the second time around, maybe it was because they had done all of this before or maybe it was because they had all stopped waiting for the joke to be revealed. The album photoshoot didn't feel as long and the music videos they shot were actually fun this time. Even their interviews didn't seem as daunting, although they proved to be just as chaotic as last time. They began to have a reputation for their interviews always spiraling off topic and for half of their televised ones to be bleeped out or sections cut out entirely due to the swearing.

During a televised interview that Eddie knew for a fact Mike told him was live no matter what Mike would later claim otherwise, Richie was about to drop the 'f' word and Eddie threw himself across Bill to slap his hand over Richie's mouth in horror.

"You can't swear on live TV." Eddie hissed at him, making Richie narrow his eyes in confusion before he licked Eddie's palm and Eddie pulled his hand away in disgust before wiping it on Richie's shirt.

"T-t-this isn't live." Bill told him as Eddie straightened up from where he had been laying across him.

Eddie looked at him in disbelief before looking over at the host for confirmation. At his nod (and the smirk he was not even trying a little bit to hide) Eddie quickly spun to glare over at the chair Mike was sitting on and looking at Eddie innocently from.

"Are you fucking kidding me man?"

_**Ben:** Getting recognized was always weird. It still is. It started around the time Clubhouse came out and hasn't stopped since. It's always a little disconcerting but the fact that someone cares enough about what you did to remember your face is so touching._

He was in line to buy bananas the first time he was recognized in public. It was a boy a few years younger than Eddie who had smiled at him so nervously when he asked for Eddie's autograph that Eddie added a little smiley face beside his name on the piece of old homework he signed for the kid, Eddie's own name going right under the big red A on the kid's report.

The next time it was a young mom pushing a stroller. The time after that a man who was old enough to be his father. A girl in a Catholic school uniform. A tourist who didn't speak seem to know any other English word but 'loser'. They all recognized him, they all told him how much the Losers' music meant to them. Eddie drew a smiley face beside his name until it became second nature. He accidentally did it on one of his rent checks and had to tear it into pieces and write it again.

Eddie wasn't the only one getting recognized, they all were. He had started to see their names on the cover of tabloid magazines at the newsstand. The girl who ran the stand where he bought his morning paper always liked to tell him the current rumors that were being written about them. There was a shocking amount of content written about Beverly's dating life and one time the girl told him there was an article claiming he and Richie were romantically involved. The noise that came out of Eddie's mouth when he heard that was something he had never made before or since.

He didn't have too long to wonder at how he felt about that rumor before another tour started and the only thoughts he had time for were about music.

_The band's fame was steadily rising ever higher with no end in sight. The Clubhouse world tour sold out within one week._

Stuart and Jack wanted to capitalize on their ever climbing fame and they booked them for an extensive world tour that would span seventeen countries and fourteen months.

Eddie had thought buses were bad but that was nothing like when he got on an airplane. He wore a doctor's surgical mask from the moment they entered the airport until the time they left. Everyone teased him mercilessly for it but the joke was on them. Eddie was the only one who didn't catch the flu on the long flight from LA to Sydney.

He wished he could say they got to do some sightseeing while they were abroad but they were either too tried from the flight or crashing after the shows for any of them to see very much. Eddie felt like he was in a perpetual state of jetlag and he knew he was not the only one. They got to stay in hotels while they were abroad, their trips in the other countries too spread out to justify trying to drive a bus between them. The most shocking thing for Eddie was the crowds, he had no idea their music had reached this many people or this far. Judging from the stunned looks on everyone else's faces after their first show abroad he was not the only one.

They ended the tour back in the States, doing one more round of the west coast before returning home. They had three shows left to go before the tour was over when the cell phone Eddie never used and only remembered to charge because Stuart threatened him over it, started ringing from the drawer he always kept it in.

It was late at night and they were all on the bus enjoying a bit of rest as they drove from Portland to San Francisco. All of them were sitting there at the front of the bus which Richie confirmed by pointing to each of them and counting while everyone stared at the drawer in confusion. Eddie's phone had never rung before, when Stuart needed them he called Bill or Ben who could be most trusted to have their phone on and somewhere in their general vicinity.

On legs he tried very hard to hide were shaking Eddie stood and made his way carefully into the kitchen. He hated walking around when the bus was moving. You would think that after two years of this he would be used to it but the thought of moving around on a moving vehicle still caused his heart to race in panic. Swallowing his nerves, Eddie dug the phone out of the drawer just as it stopped ringing. He looked up at the others with a frown at having missed the call and then nearly jumped out of his skin when the shrill noise started up again in his palm.

"How do I answer it?" Eddie asked, having forgotten in the long months since Stuart had pressed the phones into their hands and explained all of the buttons.

Bill, who was closest to him, grabbed the phone from his hand and quickly pressed a button before handing the phone back to Eddie who took it with a steadily growing sense of dread that he didn't think was solely due to the frantic mummering of the words 'radiation' and 'cancer' shouting on a loop in his head.

"Hello?" he asked, turning his back on his friends, suddenly certain he did not want to be looking at them when he heard this phone call. Or more accurately, he didn't want them to be looking at him. The bus felt claustrophobically small of a sudden and Eddie pawed desperately at his chest like that would stave off the oncoming panic attack he could feel brewing inside of him.

"Eddie? It's Stuart." their manager's voice was more somber than Eddie had ever heard and he waited until Eddie made a noise of acknowledgement before he continued. "I'm afraid I have some terrible news about your mother."

The words police, sudden, and painless all flitted through Eddie's ears without meaning and he nodded along mutely without really understanding what Stuart was getting at. Then he said the word 'dead' and Eddie still knew the meaning of that word. His knees gave out and he fell hard to the fake tile floor of the bus's tiny closet sized kitchen while the others shouted in concern.

_But of course, not everything can go smoothly all the time, sometimes life gets in the way. Tragedy struck at the end of the Clubhouse tour._

Ben took the phone after Eddie collapsed to discuss the logistics of what happened next. Eddie heard the word funeral and proceeded to tune the rest of the conversation out, resting his head on Bill's shoulder from where they sat in a group huddle on the kitchen floor. Eddie wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, long enough for Ben to hang up the phone and join them, long enough for Ricky to listen to 'A Hard Day's Night' through twice from the driver's seat. Long enough for the numbness in his heart to seep through his bloodstream to fill his hands, his legs, his chest. Long enough that when Mike suggested that he try to get some sleep Eddie didn't protest and instead let him lead him the few feet to his bunk.

Eddie had taken the first bottom left bunk for all of their tours as it was the farthest from the bathroom and being on the bottom reduced the risk of him breaking something or getting a concussion if he fell out of bed. That night he wished he was further from the common area because he heard the others whispering long into the night. They tried to keep their voices down but Eddie still heard the words, 'cancel' and 'tour' more than once as he pretended to fall asleep, like he was ever going to be able to sleep again. He knew without a doubt his mother would be waiting for him in his dreams. He was in no hurry to learn the new terrible things she would be saying to him.

Eventually the others all wandered off to their own bunks and Eddie lay behind the dark curtain separating him from the rest of the bus and was suddenly overcome by the sensation that he was laying in his own coffin. He tried to take deep breaths like he had been advised by countless people whenever he felt like this and closed his eyes as he tried to ward off an overwhelming sense of panic. Closing his eyes made it worse and he could swear he felt dirt being thrown on him, burying him in there.

Eddie's eyes popped open with a gasp as he clawed at his chest and face and found no trace of the phantom dirt. Reminding himself that it wasn't real as he tried to get his breathing back under control as quietly as he could.

"Eds." a soft whisper came from the other side of the curtain and Eddie turned onto his side so he could pull the curtain open a little, too tired to even glare at Richie for the use of the nickname. He was kneeling in front of Eddie's bunk looking for one of the few times in his life like he didn't know what to say.

They stared at each other in silence for a long moment as Eddie's breathing got back under control. For someone so chaotic Richie always had a calming effect on him.

"Shove over." Richie finally whispered, making a shooing gesture with his hands.

Eddie looked at him in surprise and didn't move until Richie started to climb inside the bunk with Eddie still in the middle of it. Not wanting to get a knee or elbow to a sensitive region Eddie turned over onto his side and scooted as close to the wall as he could. Richie climbed in after him and Eddie heard him slide the curtain closed, shutting them both into total darkness.

He expected the bunk to feel even smaller, even more like a coffin now that there were two of them in it but instead all Eddie felt was a sense of warmth and safety as Richie slowly draped his arm around his waist. There in the dark with Richie holding him Eddie finally felt the reality of his mother's death sink in. She was gone. She had died hating him, for not coming home, for leaving her. He had abandoned her and then he had never worked up the nerve to call her after the last horrible time they had spoken at the show. He sent her postcards and letters but what good did that do? Stuart said it had been sudden but what if she had been sick for a while and tried to reach Eddie but couldn't because she didn't have any way to contact him? What if he had robbed them both of a goodbye?

The tears finally began to fall as the guilt took over and Eddie curled up as tightly as the small space and Richie's tighter hold on him allowed. He knew his sobs were not quiet, knew that the others would surely be able to hear them in this small bus that everyone heard everything in. Eddie had never minded the closeness of the bus before, he didn't care that they didn't have any secrets, he felt like it brought them closer. In that moment Eddie hated the bus almost as much as he hated himself.

He finally cried himself dry and lay panting in Richie's arms as he tried regain some form of composure. Eddie would have been embarrassed at anyone else seeing him cry like that but this was Richie. They had seen each other in far worse states before. He was sure they would see each other in far worse states later.

"It's bullshit." Richie finally whispered into Eddie's ear after his breathing had once again gone back to normal. Eddie himself didn't feel normal, he doubted very much that he would ever feel normal again.

Eddie made a noise of agreement as he wrapped one of his hands around Richie's where it rested against his stomach. It was bullshit. His mother was dead before he worked up the courage to speak to her again. She had died hating him, hating his friends, hating their music and now there was nothing Eddie could ever do to try to change her mind. It was bullshit that his mother had been his last living family member and now he was all alone. It was bullshit and it was crap and it was-

"Your bunk is so much bigger than mine." Richie whispered cutting off the rant taking place in Eddie's head like a record needle skipping.

It took a moment for Eddie to follow Richie's erratic train of thought but when he did, he rolled his eyes in a way that made his surely red rimmed eyes ache.

"They're all same fucking size." Eddie protested weakly, the energy to fight having leaked out with his tears.

"Um no they're fucking not." Richie whispered, poking Eddie lightly in the stomach and moving his chin to tuck it in the crook of Eddie's neck. Eddie had never been held like this before. He was surprised by how much he liked it, how safe it made him feel. Dimly he wondered if someone else holding him like this would have the same soothing affect or if that was all from Richie, even if he was still complaining. "My head and my feet touch the walls in my bunk. In here I've got inches of room. Inches."

Eddie rolled his eyes and shook his head the best he could with Richie's still resting against his. "Maybe your bunk is too full of your ego."

Richie scoffed and Eddie felt his breath tickle the side of his face. "My ego is directly proportional to the size it should be." he snuggled in tighter against Eddie and Eddie could feel his body pressed against his back like a warm blanket. Eddie let his eyes drift shut as a sense of security and bone deep exhaustion began to course over him. "I'm just saying the shortest person in the band shouldn't have the biggest bunk. I might have to bring this to the rest of the group."

"Bev is shorter than me." Eddie protested weakly without opening his eyes, feeling sleep steadily taking him under.

Richie scoffed again and Eddie thought he felt him brush a feather light kiss against his hair as he whispered, "Keep telling yourself that."

_**Ricky Vinton** (driver): Can't tell you a thing about that. I was too busy watching the roads to pay attention to what the band was doing. Good thing too, somebody had to be focused enough to keep them all alive._

The next morning Eddie woke up alone and with a sorrow that felt like it was etching itself permanently onto his heart. The nightmares had been worse than he had been expecting and he woke with his hands curled up like claws like he had been trying to keep them away from his waking body all night. If only it had worked. He could hear the hushed voices of the others on the other side of the curtain and Eddie sighed as he shoved it open and untangled himself from the sheets.

He walked into the front room where they all sat and looked up at him in sympathy. Eddie knew he looked like shit; he could feel it. His eyes felt puffy and he was sure they were red from all the crying. His hair felt like it was sticking in every direction and he felt like he had a pillow crease on his cheek. For once Eddie didn't give a shit and he all but fell onto the couch beside Stan who wrapped his arm around him in sympathy as Eddie looked around and surveyed all of them wearily.

"Are you going to replace me?" Eddie asked, his voice emotionless as he looked around the room. This had been one of the fears his mother had hurled at him in the night, he'd had time to accept it as a possibility. He was met by six confused faces so he explained with a sigh, "For the rest of the tour? Are you going to get a replacement violin player?"

"Yeah cause great violin players just grow on trees." Richie scoffed before shaking his head, shoving his glasses back up his nose after they slid down with his exuberance. "No, we're not going to fucking replace you idiot."

Eddie let out a slow breath of relief as some of the heaviness in his heart lifted. At least there was one thing his nightmare mother said that wasn't true. He nodded once before saying blandly, picking at the hem of his shorts. "Okay. The shows will sound just fine without me. Everyone knows I'm just a showy instrument anyway." Eddie could only hope that they didn't like the way the band sounded without him. He had always been afraid that they were going to remove him and his violin from the mix, decide to go for more of a traditional rock and roll sound.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Stan snapped from beside him over the sound of everyone else telling Eddie he was not a 'showy instrument'. Eddie turned to look at him wearily as Stan glared at him, the arm around his shoulders suddenly squeezing him so tight Eddie winced.

"We're canceling the rest of the tour. Ricky's dropping us off at San Francisco's airport and we're flying into Bangor. We have a few layovers but we'll get to Derry in plenty of time before the funeral tomorrow." Stan explained all of it slowly, sounding nearly as exhausted as Eddie felt. He wondered if maybe they hadn't gone to bed when he thought they had last night or maybe his cries were just too loud and kept them up. He was too full of guilt over his mother to have room to feel guilty about that as well.

Eddie felt all of the air rush out of his lungs as he stared at Stan in shock. "You guys canceled the shows?" he asked slowly before the rest of the words hit him. "You're coming to the funeral with me?"

"Of course we are." Bev said squeezing his hand from where she had come to sit on his other side, tucking herself against him like a blanket.

"We'd never let you g-g-go through this alone." Bill assured him from across the room, his gaze bright in a way that reminded Eddie of the day he had shown up on his front porch, tears barely held back as he told him Georgie was missing.

Eddie looked around at the sincere faces of his friends who were so easily telling him that they were returning with him to the town they had all sworn at one point or another to never return too. Eddie swallowed hard and blinked back tears as he realized that he wasn't as alone as he had thought. That his nightmare mother's claims that he would die alone and unloved might not prove to be true after all.

_Due to the unexpected passing of Kaspbrak's mother, Sonia, the Losers canceled the final three dates of their tour to return home for the funeral services._

Derry seemed to have gotten even smaller in the years of their absence. Eddie knew it was just in his head, it was the same size that it had been before and he was just used to big cities now but he still felt like the town had been bigger when he was growing up. They stayed in the Derry Inn rather than anyone staying with their parents even though most of them still lived there. The night they got into town everyone else went to at least say hi to their families while Beverly and Eddie played 'go fish' in his hotel room and tried to pretend they were anywhere else in the world.

The day Eddie buried his mother in the earth was a beautiful crisp fall day with a cloudless sky and a sun that looked as yellow as butter. As he watched her coffin get lowered into the grave that would be her final resting place beside his father birds chirped in the trees and he heard squirrels running around nearby. Several town members had shown up to mourn and pay their respects despite the fact that none of them had been very fond of Sonia Kaspbrak while she had been alive.

It was a picturesque idealistic image of a small-town funeral and Eddie hated every fucking second of it.

They waited at the graveside until everyone else slowly trickled away. There were no reception plans as Eddie was Sonia's only living family and she was too much of a shut in to have any real friends. Eddie knew half of the people had shown up to the funeral out of morbid curiosity and the other half had done it to steal a glimpse at the seven kids who had actually made it out of this shithole of a town to make something of themselves.

That was being too harsh, even Eddie knew that through his grief. Mike's grandfather had come to show him support and he had clapped Eddie on the shoulder so hard it made his knees bend. The others' parents had shown up as well, thankfully Beverly's father did not make an appearance, not out of love or respect for Sonia Kaspbrak but because the night before their children who had asked so little of them over the past few years had asked them to do one little thing out of fear that they would be the only people there to lay Eddie's mom to rest. Eddie did not find out about this until years later over a drinking game that Ben was losing at so spectacularly, he forgot that Eddie hadn't known before.

After a while only the seven of them remained, a heavy silence and the dead their only other companions in the graveyard. Eddie wished it was raining. It was hard to feel this bone deep sorrow on such a beautiful day. The two contradicted each other so badly it was giving Eddie a headache.

"Someone should say something." Ben said softly, looking around at the others.

Eddie's throat was too tight for him to speak so he just shook his head, staring down into the grave with guilt coursing through his veins like blood. Maybe if he'd stayed in Derry she would still be here. Maybe he had driven her to an early grave by never coming home. Eddie didn't know how but he knew in his heart this was all his fault.

"To Eddie's mom!" Richie suddenly cried, pulling Eddie from his dark thoughts to look over at him with a wrinkled brow.

"I didn't mean you!" he heard Ben whisper in horror but it was quickly drowned out as Richie continued in a grand Voice with a flourish of his arms.

"The best lover I ever had!" Richie concluded to the sound of groans and admonishments.

"Too s-s-s-soon." Bill sighed with a shake of his head from Eddie's other side.

It was all too much to Eddie; his crushing guilt, the bright blue sky, his mother's grave. He felt like he was about to pop and he didn't know if it was going to be in tears or screams. To his surprise, it was neither.

Eddie burst into peals of laughter that sounded hysterical even to his own ears. He caught the startled and worried looks of his friends as he doubled over and clutched at his stomach as the laughter rolled out of him. His guffawing soon turned to sobs and Eddie sunk to his knees in the grass before the still open grave, feeling his friends' arms wrap around him as they followed him down.

_**Richie**: Derry's a sewer. That's all that's there. One big rancid sewer. The cockroaches in New York are friendly than people in Derry._

That night Eddie couldn't sleep. After hours of staring up at his ceiling in the dark he slipped on his shoes and jacket before creeping down the stairs to the lobby where at least he could stare at something else. To his surprise the lobby wasn't empty and Richie looked over the edge of the couch he was sitting on to give Eddie a little wave.

"Ah the conquering hero awakes!" Richie cried softly as Eddie shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Is still awake." Eddie corrected, settling onto the couch beside Richie. He didn't bother correcting the hero part of his statement. They both knew Eddie would never be classified as a hero in anything but a joke.

They sat in silence for a moment just looking at each other before Richie suddenly jumped to his feet. Wordlessly, he offered his hand to Eddie who took it wearily after a brief moment of hesitation.

"Let's blow this popsicle stand!" Richie said with a wild grin before tugging Eddie after him through the door and out into the night.

_**Richie**: I guess there were some good parts to it but those were the people that left with me so...yeah Derry just sucks._

There was a time when none of them would have been caught dead out after dark in Derry. But Bowers was still locked up and the clown was long dead, most of the people who had bullied them had either calmed down or were in jail. It was probably safer for them to be walking around Derry at night than for them to walk around New York City at night but Eddie still felt safer when he was in the city.

Richie didn't let go of his hand as they walked and Eddie found that he didn't mind. In fact, he kind of even liked the way Richie's fingers felt threaded through his own. He was so busy trying to figure out what that meant that when Richie finally came to a stop it took Eddie a moment to figure out where they were.

"The kissing bridge?" he asked in surprise, dropping Richie's hand to approach the worn wooden railing and running his fingers lightly over one of the letters carved there. Eddie had never really understood the appeal of the place, he had too many bad memories of being caught by Bowers and his cronies to ever be able to think of the place as romantic. He wondered why Richie would choose this place to stop on memory lane. Maybe the bridge was more romantic to him than it was to Eddie. "Did you ever carve anything here?" Eddie asked, looking over his shoulder at Richie curiously. As he said the words a strange pinch in his gut reminded him he hadn't eaten anything since yesterday.

Eddie thought he saw Richie's eyes flash to further down the bridge but decided that must have been a trick of the moonlight as Richie gave him a wolfish grin and came to lean against the railing beside him, looking out into the dark stream below them. Eddie was suddenly remembered of the story of the troll who used to live under bridges making travelers pay a fee before crossing safely to the other side. He surveyed the profile of Richie's face in the moonlight and wondered what the price would be to cross the bridge between looking at his face and caressing it.

The thought was sudden and intrusive and decidedly unwanted. Eddie quickly boxed it up and hurled it towards the deepest, darkest place within him as Richie turned to smirk over at him.

"Naw but I'm sure tons of girls carved my name." he proclaimed with such assuredness that Eddie couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled out from him, the thought he'd had sufficiently hidden away. "Why are you laughing? I had tons of ladies in high school! They all wanted my dick." Richie said bumping against Eddie's side and only making him laugh harder.

"We were the pariahs of high school." Eddie said with an eyeroll as he leaned against the carved railing of the kissing bridge and stared down at the thin trickle of water underneath them, choosing to ignore the dick comment. "None of us got any ladies."

"Speak for yourself." Richie said proudly, puffing out his chest in a way that made Eddie think of a bird doing a mating dance.

Eddie scoffed and went back to staring down at the stream as Richie leaned back against the railing beside him. "Why'd you want to come here?" Eddie finally asked, looking at him curiously from the corner of his eye.

Richie looked over at him and the pause stretched on for so long that Eddie was beginning to think he wasn't going to answer before he shrugged and suddenly leaned backwards, using his grip on the bridge to stop him from falling on his ass. Eddie felt the wild urge to push him over but he dug his fingers into the wood instead.

"You know, just revisiting the old stompin' ground." Richie said before smirking and saying in a voice that he had been repeatedly forbidden from using, "Next we could go play in the sewers!"

Eddie shivered at the sound of the clown's voice that still haunted him every night and he shook his head at Richie with a glare.

"That's not fucking funny asshole."

_Despite the abrupt ending to their tour, Clubhouse remained a very successful album. Three of the songs off the album were number one hits; the group written 'fuck you henry bowers' and 'We all float down here!' as well as Mike Hanlon's 'rituals'. Ben Hanscom's 'January Embers' would also reach top ten._

_The album earned the band their fourth Grammy nomination and second win for best alternative music album. 'We all float down here!' won MTV's music award for 'best alternative video'. The Losers were nominated and won the American Music Awards 'favorite alternative artist' in 1998 which would be the first of many AMA awards for the group._

They returned to New York and the lives that were now normal for them, playing music into the long hours of the night and writing songs to waste the days away.

Eddie hovered in a sense of perpetual fog, where his grief and his guilt warred for the chance to come out on top for his dominant emotion. Most of the time the guilt won.

One of the few things that managed to distract him from the soul that was slowly crushing him was running. Ben had taken it up back in high school to try to be able to outrun Bowers and his gang and in the past few years he had gotten even more into it, running everyday rain, sleet or shine. Eddie started joining him and despite having to often stop to puff on the inhaler he fucking knew he didn't need but couldn't give up, the running was the only time he could reach that bone deep exhausted state where the only thing he felt was tired. No thoughts were able to come to him in that state except those of basic necessity. It was a welcome relief and Eddie chased after it with the desperation of a dying man.

Ben didn't push him to speak and it wasn't only because half the time they were running too fast to talk. Mike joined them every now and then but mostly it was just the two of them and the sound of their feet pounding against the pavement. One week when Ben had the flu Eddie asked Richie if he wanted to go running with him and he hadn't even bothered to look up from the video game he was playing as he responded, "Is someone chasing me? No? Why the fuck would I go running then Eds?"

Eddie didn't bother with asking him again.

For the first time in years they actually had some downtime where they weren't dashing from recording studio to tour to recording studio. They were all working on songs for their next album which was slowly coming together but Eddie himself was stuck when it came to lyrics. Bitter and fast melodies kept spinning out of his bow but he couldn't find the words to go along with them.

Months passed and Jack started pressing them for new music despite the fact that they had almost fulfilled their contract and still had plenty of time left to complete it. He mentioned the fact that the label was planning on resigning them after their current contract was fulfilled and that kept all of them energized. They hadn't even considered what they might do if the label didn't keep them on to keep making more music. The thought of what he would do when the band did finally come to its inevitable end was one Eddie did not let himself entertain very long. It was one of the things that he buried that kept coming back up.

They had a few songs that were ready for the new album and they decided to use Richie's surprisingly hopeful love song, 'the kissing bridge' as a single. The first time Eddie heard it he'd had the wild idea that it was about him and the night Richie had taken him to the bridge but by the time he listened to it three times Eddie knew he had been reading too much into it and choked it up to his grief addled mind.

There was no way Richie Tozier was writing love songs about him, especially not ones with the line 'on the kissing bridge we might stand a chance/to try our hand at this romance.' Eddie bothered him for days to tell him who the song was about but Richie never caved. He never heard anyone else pestering him and Eddie felt a sudden fear that everyone knew but him. He'd never been left out of a group secret before and the thought of it made him feel slightly off kilter so Eddie boxed up his curiosity and threw it away.

The song rose through the charts quickly and the label started to put more and more pressure on them to release their new album. They had enough songs to do a full album but it just didn't feel whole yet, besides Eddie didn't have a song on it and their last two albums everyone had written a song for. None of them wanted to break that trend now so whenever Jack asked how many songs they had ready they lied and waited for Eddie to break through his writer's block.

"You need to write about your p-p-pain." Bill offered unhelpfully late one night as he and Eddie lingered in the rehearsal studio to put the finishing touches on the song they had just written together. Eddie didn't think 'sewer trash' was going to be a great hit but it was honest and funny and Bill had an intense guitar solo that Eddie knew would make the song worthy of the album. And it used up one of the bitter melodies stuck in Eddie's head so he was pretty happy with it.

"What the fuck do you think I've been doing?" Eddie snapped, running his hands down his face in exhaustion. He felt like he lived in the rehearsal studio anymore, he had slept on the couch more in the last week than in his own bed.

He had tried writing songs about the grief of the loss of his mother, over the bitter end of their relationship. He had even tried to write about his soul crushing guilt that it was his fault she was gone. So far all he had to show for it was self-rejected lyrics he hated too much to even share with the others and a dark intense melody he couldn't seem to find the words too.

"Your real p-p-pain." Bill said with a sigh as he packed his things up. Eddie knew he must have been nervous to say this to him because he'd been attending speech therapy for months now and his stutter had improved immensely except when he was nervous or frustrated. "Whatever it is you've b-b-been too s-scared to confront."

Eddie scoffed and waved good night to Bill as he headed out the door, locking it behind him. Eddie looked around the empty studio before stretching out on the couch with a groan, letting his head fall back off the side in a way he was sure was terrible for him so he could stare up at the ceiling in anger.

"I have confronted my pain." he whispered bitterly to the empty room before humming the melody that was always playing in his head. He was so tired of people telling him what to do; the band for pressuring him to finish a song, Jack for demanding new music, his mother for suffocating him and then being mad at him when he resented her for it.

Well, Eddie was mad too. He was mad that she died. He was really mad that she died while they were on bad terms which made him feel constantly like he had swallowed a baseball. He was mad that she never let him play sports, that he wasn't allowed to do things other kids were. He was mad at how she talked to his friends, how she hated his music. He was mad that she had passed on her fears of the world to him, making him so sacred of germs that the mere thought of them made him physically ill at times. Eddie hated that he was always so nervous, constantly looking for all the ways something could go wrong and he could get hurt. He was furious that she had lied to him for years, shoving sugar pills down his throat for so long he still depended on them even now.

"I hate the way you shaped me twisted and bent/in to this neurotic person that I resent." Eddie whispered from where he lay painfully on the couch. The melody in his head rushed up meet the words suddenly burning the back of his throat and Eddie sat up so quickly he got a head rush and he clung to the back of the couch as it passed, the next lyric already tumbling past his lips. "I count the exits on my way in/take a deep breath and count to ten."

His head finally stopped spinning and Eddie lunged for his notebook, his fingers already trying to write out the lyrics before he even had a pen in his hand.

_The two singles the band released after Clubhouse showed an immense amount of growth and surety in their songwriting. Both Richie Tozier's poignant 'the kissing bridge' and Eddie Kaspbrak's anguished 'placebo effect' would be number one hits._

He wrote two songs during that sleepless night and when the rest of the band showed up to the rehearsal studio the next morning Eddie wordlessly handed Mike the lyrics that he had copied neatly onto new paper rather than try to make his friend read the scratched-up notes on his original pages.

The band liked 'helicopter' but when Eddie played them the dark melody that had been in his head for months and Mike sang the lyrics that had rushed out of him so easily the night before everyone nearly lost their minds.

"Holy fucking shit!" Richie cried before standing to wrap Eddie in a bear hug that took him off his feet. "I always knew you were a tiny ball of rage!"

"I'm not tiny!" Eddie snapped drawing himself up to his full height as Richie put him back down. "I am an average height! You're just freakishly tall!"

"Who cares about how tall you guys are?" Beverly interrupted what could easily become a long drawn out fight as she looked around the room. "That's our next single right?"

'Placebo effect' came out two weeks later and 'the kissing bridge' was finally unseated from its number one slot.

_**Richie**: 'Placebo effect' is not better than 'the kissing bridge.' Anyone who says it is, is just trying to get into Kaspbrak's pants._

_Undiscovered Childhood Trauma released on September 09, 1999 and sold out in four days. The manufacturers had to rush a print on more CDs the demand was so high._

Their third album was out and they had officially finished their contract with Duma Records but Jack and Stuart had already written them up another one, this one for three albums as well. Eddie's fingers didn't shake nearly as bad when he signed their second contract.

Their stardom kept burning brighter and brighter, despite how often they all still thought it would burn out at any moment. They did a cover story with _Rolling Stone_ and Eddie wasn't entirely sure how it happened but somehow a small fire got started in the trashcan of their rehearsal studio where they had decided to do the interview. The writer did a good job on including it in the article without making them all look like idiots, citing 'the interview went about as chaotic as all of their past press tours promised it would.'

_**Dana Bright** (journalist, the Rolling Stone): That was one of the best interviews of my career, even with the trash fire. (laughs) I have never met such down to earth people so unafraid to be themselves. A lot of the time I only get to see the polished faces of musicians, this cool persona they want people to see them as. The Losers never tried to be cool, they never tried to be liked. That was why they were liked. With the Losers you knew that what you see was what you got._

Jacks and Stuart sent them out on tour before the magazine was even off the newsstands. They started the tour on icy snowy roads and Eddie made Ricky triple check the chains around the buses' tires every time they stopped.

The majority of the country was caught up in a panic at the approaching new millennium, claiming that 'Y2K' was going to be the end of them all. They had just finished playing a show in Houston, Texas and were counting down the new year in a rare splurge of a hotel room. Even their relentless label knew it was too dangerous to have the buses out on the road that night.

They were hanging out in a suite with Ricky and their roadies. One of them, the terrifying at first glance but actually a teddy bear Pete, kept making them drinks that didn't taste nearly as bad as the drinks Eddie had tried before the few times he'd attempted drinking. He kept throwing them back as quickly as Pete was making them. Eddie was way past drunk and careening towards hammered but judging by everyone's loud voices and laughter he was not the only one.

Suddenly overcome by the need to move Eddie stumbled down the hallway towards the bathroom, using the walls to hold himself up as he shambled along.

Richie found him drinking water straight from the hotel's bathroom faucet which sober Eddie would have done only if he was dying of thirst and even then, he wouldn't have done it willingly.

"You're fucking trashed." Richie grinned, leaning his hip against the bathroom counter to grin at him, his blurry eyes behind his glasses showing he was just as wasted as Eddie. "My little Eddie is growing up."

"Well the world is ending." Eddie replied, as he straightened and wiped the water off his mouth with the back of his hand. "Figured I should try it now. Just in case." he knew his words were slurred just like he knew that the counter was holding him up more than Eddie was leaning on it but he didn't mind very much. He felt more at peace than he had in a long time, except for the roiling in his stomach. Eddie had just enough clarity of mind to worry about catching dysentery from the hotel's bathroom water before Richie was speaking and pulling his thoughts away.

"You really think the world is going to end?" he asked, his voice thick like he was talking through syrup.

Eddie shrugged in a slow languid way that he knew he would never be able to replicate while sober. "It might." Eddie didn't really put too much stock into the Y2K theories but enough people had been prophesying about the end of the world for so long that at some point someone was bound to be right.

"Well there's something I need to do then." Richie said slowly, stepping forward until he was right in Eddie's space. For a moment he hesitated there, close enough to touch but not actually doing it, like he needed a moment to ready himself. Slowly Richie rose his hands to carefully place them on either side of Eddie's face. Eddie swallowed hard and looked at him in surprise, Richie's eyes searching Eddie's for any sign to indicate he wanted him to move away.

Eddie didn't know what he wanted; he didn't know why his heart was hammering like this, he didn't know why he wasn't shoving Richie away. He knew with startling surety what Richie was planning to do and to Eddie's shock he found that he was suddenly longing for him to do it, like he had been wanting this his whole life without even knowing it. That opened the door to a truckload of boxes full of questions about himself that Eddie had never intended to open. He was on the verge of panicking from the sheer number of thoughts he had locked away and he was certain Richie could feel the racing of his pulse where his hands rested on his face.

His thoughts attacked him like a frantic whirlwind intent on catching him and casting him out to sea but everything shattered into silence when Richie closed the last few inches of distance between them and kissed him.

Eddie had never been kissed before, he had never really seen the appeal of swapping spit and germs and who knew what else with other people. Whenever he saw people kissing in public he always wrinkled his nose in distaste. He thought people kissing looked like they were trying to fight with their mouths or worse, like they were trying to swallow each other whole. The one time he had voiced this opinion aloud was to Beverly who promised him it really wasn't like that and when he met the right person Eddie wouldn't mind swapping spit with them at all. Fifteen-year-old Eddie had promptly told her she was wrong and that he was perfectly content going through life never kissing anyone at all.

Twenty-three year old Eddie now realized that statement had been fucking stupid.

Richie's lips moved against his softly like he knew that this was new to Eddie and he wanted him to be able to savor it. He tasted like the sweet drinks they had been downing and Eddie could feel his stubble scratching his own clean-shaven face as they kissed. Eddie dug his fingers into the front of Richie's shirt to pull him closer to him, overcome with a sense of need so burning hot it might have knocked him down had he not had Richie there to lean against and hold him up.

Eddie's stomach was a churning mess and he finally understood why people claimed to feel butterflies around other people. He had never felt anything like this before. When Richie and him finally broke apart Eddie made a soft noise of disappointment at no longer feeling Richie's mouth on his. He was certain that his lips would never feel the same again now that he knew what they felt like touching his. Richie pulled away from him slowly and Eddie looked up at him in shock, the only reason he didn't reach up to touch his own lips with his fingers to feel the affect the kiss had on them was because he didn't want to remove his hands from Richie's chest.

Richie didn't go far, pulling away to rest his forehead against Eddie's, his eyes bright on his through his glasses as he whispered in a very un-Richie like voice, "Just in case."

A soft laugh bubbled out of Eddie's chest at the words and suddenly all of the drinks Pete had been giving him hit him and Eddie realized it was not butterflies in his stomach after all. With regret he pulled away from Richie and quickly spun to face the toilet, his knees hitting the tile hard enough to bruise as he hurled.

_**Peter McVries** (roadie): The Losers were cool on stage but off it they were all pretty nerdy. I think over all the years we spent together we only partied it up like twice, and not for lack of trying on my part! It was weird for how rock n' roll they sounded, they sure didn't live a rock and roll lifestyle._

If he ever had a hangover again it would be too soon.

Eddie could tell from the rest of the band's mellow state the next day as they boarded the bus that they all felt the same way. Eddie himself had thrown up twice that morning alone and judging from what the others told him he had thrown up most of the night too, although he had not been the only one.

"That's one way to ring in the new millennium!" Pete had cried, clapping him on the back as they crossed the parking lot to reach the buses. The scar on his face wrinkled as he winked at Eddie. "Next time I won't make 'em so strong."

Eddie was too busy nursing a pounding headache to tell him that there wasn't going to be a next time.

Their show that night was undoubtedly the worst one they ever played. Apparently, hangovers and rock and roll did not mix. Eddie didn't know why so many musicians ended up turning to drink and drugs. He never wanted to play a show feeling like this again.

It wasn't until the next day after the hangover had finally passed that Eddie realized Richie had been avoiding him. Eddie didn't remember most of new year's eve but according to Bill, Richie had spent a good ten minutes in the bathroom trying to help Eddie through his pukefest.

Finally, after two days of Richie not talking to him Eddie was about ready to go insane. It was crazy how on such a small bus Richie still managed to avoid him. Whatever he had done that night must have been bad because Richie even chose to ride on the roadie's tour bus one night. He said it was because it was more fun over there but Eddie knew it was because he wanted to avoid him.

He tried to catch him all day but it wasn't until they were about to walk onto stage three days into the new millilumen that Eddie was finally able to catch him.

Eddie grabbed hold of his sleeve to pull Richie to a stop and Richie looked over his shoulder at him with raised brows and an expression that looked oddly wary in the dark lighting of the stage's wings.

"I'm sorry." Eddie said, licking his lips as he looked around wildly like his memory would be waiting there. "Whatever happened new year's, I'm sorry."

"You puked." Richie said deadpanned, no trace of his usual humor in his voice. The sound of it made a coil of fear wrap around Eddie's heart.

Eddie nodded wordlessly. "It's gross I know." he could see himself getting upset over something like bodily fluids but Richie didn't usually care about stuff like that. He was certain he wasn't getting the full story. "Did I do something else?" Eddie looked up at Richie desperately, he wanted to know what had caused this sudden wedge between the two of them. All of the losers were close but Richie and Eddie had a bond that was different than what he had with anyone else. Eddie never managed to put his finger on what it was he just knew that having Richie look at him with the look of disappointment on his face was like driving a knife through his heart.

"Are you serious?" Richie asked, his voice still that soft tone that was making Eddie's heart race with how nervous it was making him. It took him a moment to realize it was because Richie didn't sound like Richie at all. Somber was not a mood that Richie Tozier usually wore and it was not one that he wore well.

"I'm serious." Eddie promised with a vigorous nod of his head. The blank emptiness of that night taunted Eddie in the downturned expression on his friend's face. "Most of that night is just gone."

Richie looked at him for a long moment and even in the dark light of backstage Eddie could see him searching his expression for any trace that Eddie was lying. He must have finally seen the truth on Eddie's face because he suddenly pulled Eddie tight to his side and let out a loud and extremely realistic sounding vomit noise that nearly made Eddie gag.

Richie almost sounded completely like himself again as he teased, "You gave Linda Blair a run for her money Eds."

_Their lack of a 'rock n' roll' lifestyle proved to work well for them. Undiscovered Childhood Trauma is the Loser's most critically acclaimed album. The album was nominated for five Grammy Awards-best rock performance by a duo or group with vocal for 'nothing bonds like shared trauma' (won), best alternative music album (won), best rock song for 'placebo effect' (won), song of the year for 'the kissing bridge' (won), album of the year (nominated)._

_Other awards included: MTV 2000 music awards Video of the Year and Viewer's choice for 'nothing bonds like shared trauma'. American Music Award's for favorite alternative artist and favorite pop/rock album._

_'Placebo effect' stayed a number one hit for eighteen consecutive weeks. Other number one hits: the group written 'nothing bonds like shared trauma', Bill Denbrough's 'spit it out', and Tozier's award winning 'the kissing bridge'. The group written 'Neibolt street' and 'the blood oath' also hit top ten._

Their tour ended in June not that any of them noticed as they were immediately sent out on Van's Warped tour. The moment they returned to New York City in late August Eddie noticed the changes in the group with a growing sense of trepidation.

Eddie felt like he was standing still, watching silently as everyone else slowly started moving on. Not with the band, and not with their friendship, but on to the next stage of their lives. He supposed it was inevitable as they were getting older but that didn't mean that he was anymore prepared or okay with it.

Stan had met a girl at a coffeeshop and he had been seeing her nearly every day for weeks. Patty was nice but it was weird having someone else suddenly in their circle. Bev briefly dated some guy she met at a bar which led to five very tense weeks where Ben and Bill both tried to pretend that they weren't jealous while also pretending not to notice that the other was totally jealous. Mike started dating, just a few dates here or there and nothing that bloomed into anything serious but he was still putting himself out there. Eddie was pretty sure he saw a new girl sheepishly sneaking out of Richie's bedroom every morning. It felt like everyone was trying their hand at this whole dating thing but him. Eddie tried to convince himself to try it but the thought of having to put his mouth on someone else's mouth made him start to gag.

The thought of the others dating filled Eddie with doubts and uncertainty for their future. He knew that they still had a new contract to fulfill but Eddie was suddenly certain that they were all going to announce that they didn't want to do it anymore, that they would just pay the label to break the contract and deal with the repercussions so they could move on to the rest of their lives.

Eddie had never expected the band to be signed which he had admitted to himself several times over the years, but he had never imagined a world where they got popular only to end up quitting a few years later. He had no idea what he would do without the Losers and their music. He felt like he didn't really know who he was anymore outside of it. Eddie was sure that at any moment this wonderful world they had built was going to crash into pieces around him so he started to prepare himself for the inevitable fallout he knew in his heart was coming.

Eddie was accepted to New York University for the spring semester of 2001 much to the confusion of the rest of the band.

"Why are you paying for more school?" Bev had asked one night as Eddie painted her fingernails bright purple. Eddie had taken over painting her nails for her back in high school. She always messed up her left hand and Eddie found the motions of painting her nails soothing.

"It's a backup plan." Eddie admitted with a shrug, grateful for the polish for an excuse not to look up at her as he spoke. He hadn't confessed this to any of them yet and Eddie really did not want to have to see the truth on Beverly's face of whether or not he needed a backup plan.

"Oh Eddie." Bev said softly, her hands flexing under his like she wanted to reach out and touch him. Eddie held her hands in place softly, he had worked too hard for her to mess up her nails when he was on the last one. "You know none of us are going anywhere."

Eddie made a noncommittal noise at her words but the truth was that he didn't know that, not really.

Even when they started working on their fourth album, working their rehearsal time around Eddie's class schedule which Richie griped about constantly and in several different Voices, he kept waiting for someone to announce that they were done, they'd had enough. The music wasn't enough for them anymore, the band wasn't enough. Their friendship wasn't a strong enough bond anymore, stretched too taunt by their suffocating closeness and codependency. Eddie kept waiting for them to realize that he loved them far more than any of them loved him.

As it turned out, they were just as afraid that he was going to leave them as he was of them leaving him.

Late one night at the rehearsal studio Eddie suddenly swore and sat up from the floor he was stretched out on as he caught sight of the time on Mike's watch dangling near his face.

"Shit." he swore, struggling to his feet among the discarded pages and instruments scattered around him. "I have a test in the morning."

"Blow it off." Richie said with a shrug, not looking up at him as he tapped out a fast new rhythm on his bass.

Eddie threw a glare over at him that only deepened as he caught sight of the love bite on Richie's neck. He didn't know why the man suddenly felt the need to flaunt the fact that he was sleeping with people but he wasn't at all surprised. He'd heard enough comments about his sex life to last a lifetime. It was what he had always expected would happen after growing up with Richie.

That didn't mean he had to like it though.

"I can't blow it off dickweed." Eddie snapped as he tugged on his jacket angrily. "It affects my grade."

Richie let out a long sigh that made a piece of his even longer hair blow up around his face. Seriously, when was the last time someone had come at him with a pair of scissors?

"Dude just fucking do it already." Richie snapped, glaring over at Eddie and causing Stan to look up with a quick "Beep beep." and Bill to whisper his name softly in warning.

"No fuck this." Richie said stubbornly to the two of them before turning the weight of his gaze back on to Eddie. "If you want to quit, quit. Stop dragging it out."

Eddie felt like Richie had just knocked him across the stomach with his bass and he looked around at all of them in shock. No one looked surprised by Richie's outburst which made Eddie grow cold as he realized that they had talked about this before. They thought Eddie wanted out. Had he been so worried about what he would do if they left him that he started to leave them first?

"I'm not going to quit." Eddie promised, shaking his head as he looked at all of them, his shoulders sagging at the looks of doubtful resignation on their faces. "I would never do that."

"So, what you're just going to college for fun?" Richie scoffed, looking away from Eddie in dismal to go back to strumming on his bass dismissively.

"I thought you wanted to quit." Eddie admitted in a whisper that could barely be heard over the bass. Richie slowly stopped playing as Eddie continued softly, the words tumbling over each other in their rush to finally be free of him. "I thought you all wanted to quit. I know it will destroy me when you do so I wanted to have something to turn to when it happens."

"We're not going to quit." Bill assured him, looking around the room as everyone voiced their agreements. They all looked a little bit put off by this conversation as if even saying the word 'quit' in their rehearsal studio might suddenly make them want to do so. Eddie felt a little bit like they were whispering the word 'Macbeth' in a crowded theater.

"Why would we quit?" Ben asked with a shake of his head.

"Why would I?" Eddie retorted although his question was more geared for Richie than anyone else. Richie refused to answer and kept strumming on his bass. Eddie slowly let his jacket slip off his arms as he sank back down to the floor. He had been worrying himself sick for over a year that everyone was going to leave him and the whole time they had been afraid of the same thing from him?

"I'd never leave you guys." Eddie found himself whispering. He meant the words for everyone but again his eyes were only on Richie's and he refused to take them off him until Richie finally looked his direction and met his eyes.

_The Losers continued at their whirlwind pace of releasing new music. Their fourth album, Truth or Dare, released on October 12, 2001. The music was a much lighter tone than their previous album and it seemed like the members of the band were all in a much better place._

Their fourth album came out in the fall of 2001 and Eddie took the spring semester of 2002 off for the tour. He couldn't remember what it was like to not spend the majority of the year on the road and that thought both terrified and amused him.

He noticed Richie starting to come back onto the bus at night way later than anyone else, usually at the last possible moment before someone (usually Eddie or Bill) went to track him down. He always smelled foul, like booze and cheap perfume. Eddie caught sight of more than one love bite on his neck and each one made his heart clench at the thought of some faceless person trying to stake a claim on Richie like they had any right at all to try to mark him as theirs.

Eddie tried to talk to him about all of the partying once but Richie had shrugged him off, throwing his arms as wide as he could as he stumbled down the narrow hallway towards his bunk.

"We're rockstars Eddie! This is who we're supposed to be!"

The most disturbing part of the sentiment to Eddie was the fact that Richie wouldn't look him in the eye when he said it.

_**Stan**: 'Truth or Dare' has some of our best songs on it, mainly because I helped write them. Everybody else was a mess when we wrote that album, just not as bad yet as they were for our fifth._

The fall semester started in September and Eddie threw himself into his books in an attempt to distract himself from the sudden amount of free time he found himself with. Richie and him were currently the only two single losers and considering the fact that Richie had someone over nearly every night he actually slept in the apartment Eddie saw him even less than he saw the others.

In an attempt to distract himself further Eddie decided to give this whole dating thing a try. He asked a girl from his economics class out on a date and the whole time he tried to figure out why she seemed so familiar. It wasn't until Myra met his friends two months later that Eddie realized what it was. Or more accurately, she was barely out the door when Richie told him with eyes wide behind his coke bottle glasses.

"Dude you're dating your mom."

Once he saw it Eddie couldn't unsee it and he broke up with her a few days later. Eddie had thought he had been gentle while he had done it but judging by the way Myra screamed at him he had not done very well.

Deciding that dating was not the thing for him Eddie buried himself further into his books and his violin and contented himself to the moments he managed to steal with his friends.

Bill met an actress at an award show they presented at. They got married three weeks later much to the vast confusion of the rest of the group. Audra was nice enough it was just weird suddenly having this other person in their mix that none of them were expecting to have. At the very least she seemed to understand the way artist's needed their space and never bothered Bill when he was out with the band.

Bill moved out of the apartment he shared with Stan once he was married and before Eddie could even worry about Stan living alone in the city his girlfriend was moving in with him. The rest of them were still living in the same roommate situation they'd had for years despite the fact that they could all afford to buy their own penthouse apartments. Eddie realized they were all codependent as fuck but at this point, he didn't really care. He had felt for years that they were like the friends in the TV show, a point which all of them agreed on and only got worse with each passing year.

Stuart set up an account for the band on some website called myspace and Eddie started to get recognized on campus more and their album sales spiked. Eddie tried not to be annoyed by the attention but it was hard when people made him late for class and shouted at him across lecture halls about when they'd be releasing new music.

Bill and Audra divorced nineteen months after they had gotten married. Eddie felt badly for his friend who was clearly upset but other than that it didn't affect him very much. They had been a group before Audra and now they were that group again. Patty had started hanging out with them more but Eddie didn't mind her as much. She didn't get offended when Eddie washed his dishes before eating when he came over for dinner.

They were slowly working on new music but they didn't feel the need to rush it as much as they had their first four albums. Part of it was the label had other successful bands now so they didn't feel the need to be breathing down their throats for new material. Another was the label was still trying to figure out how to work in this new digital music age. A large part of it was just them needing to take some time to not be on a tour bus in a new city every day.

_**Bill**: We had to slow down at some point. If we had tried to keep going at that pace, we all would have died or burnt out by the time we were thirty. Honestly, it's a miracle we've all survived as long as we have._

"I can't believe she got off the plane." Beverly complained with a shake of her head from where she lay stretched out on her stomach on the floor with Ben. Stan leaned over to flick the television off as they all grumbled about Rachel's decision and tried to ignore the thought that if the best group of friends on television had to separate at some point that meant one day they might have too as well.

"Talk about a bad choice." Eddie agreed deciding to shove away his worries for the future and instead focus on the present. He flinched into Bill's side in disgust as Richie tapped his arm with his foot from the chair next to the couch.

"I'd get off the plane for you Eds." Richie said in a high-pitched Voice, batting his eyelashes and placing his hands over his heart.

"If I'm anything like Ross you better fucking not." Eddie said sternly, knocking Richie's foot away from him. His intense dislike for Ross over the years had been a source of much amusement for the rest of the group, especially since Eddie was undoubtedly a Monica. "You should never give up your dreams for a guy like that."

"Oh yeah? What kind of guy should you give up your dream for?" Richie asked curiously, tapping Eddie with his foot again and causing Eddie to let out a wheeze of protest.

"Seriously, knock it the fuck off." Eddie snapped, batting his foot away harder this time. He felt Bill wisely stand up and move before things got further out of control.

"Tell me what kind of guy you'd give up your dreams for and I will." Richie said dangling his foot in his dirty sock that had either always been gray or needed to be burned, precariously close to Eddie's face.

"None!" Eddie groaned, shoving Richie's ankle away forcefully. He was hit by a sudden flashback of the two of them jostling each other in the hammock in the clubhouse and for a moment Eddie felt thirteen again, a feeling that was not uncommon when he was around Richie.

"Tell me!" Richie cried moving his other foot to hit at Eddie's back.

Eddie couldn't bat off both feet without risking one touching his face so he wrapped his arms around his head and tried to protect himself the best he could. Sometimes the only way to get Richie to stop was to just give him what he wanted. "Fuck, I don't know, Joey!"

He peeked out from between his arms in relief to notice Richie had tucked his feet back underneath him with a smirk.

"Good choice Eddie Spaghetti."

_**Beverly**: The tabloids definitely got worse the longer it took us to write an album. It was like instead of forgetting about us they would laser in on us like the attention would make us write faster. Over the years I've seen multiple headlines claiming I'm dating a different band member, sometimes in the same week._

Eddie knew what the tabloids said. He knew that everyone had been speculating about his sexuality for years. He knew that there had been rumors in their early years that he and Richie were dating although those rumors had petered out lately with Richie's constant and often public string of girls.

The one thing Eddie didn't know was whether any of those rumors were true.

He'd kissed Myra a few times and each time felt harder than the last and never once did he open his mouth. Eddie did not enjoy it but he didn't think it was because she was a woman. He just thought he didn't like kissing. He had never kissed a boy before so he didn't have anything to compare it too. He was tempted a few times to go into a gay bar and find out but Eddie had yet to be able to shake his mother's horror stories about the AIDS virus that Eddie knew now were vastly misinformed. Considering the fact that he still hadn't managed to rid himself of an inhaler he didn't need it was no surprise that he had yet to shake her incorrect 'facts' either.

Despite all the tabloid's rumors and speculation Eddie wasn't all that worried about his sexuality. He had too many other things to focus on to be worried about what gender he was attracted to.

He was still going to school although he had ended up dropping a class because they were so busy in the rehearsal studio. Richie had been hit by a sudden burst of creativity and he pulled them along in his flow of energy like he always did.

Eddie noticed that the string of girls had stopped coming by the apartment and when Bev noticed this as well and pointed it out Richie only grinned before telling them around a mouthful of cereal, "Yeah, my dick needed a break."

Wrinkling his nose at Richie's table manners Eddie turned away from him, silently hoping that wasn't code for he had gotten a venereal disease.

_Truth or Dare was nominated for two Grammy Awards: best alternative music album and best rock performance by a duo or group with vocal for the group written 'Home.' They were also nominated for American Music Awards 'favorite pop/rock song' for 'Home'._

_The album contained only one number one hit, 'Home'. Ben Hanscom's 'the architect' would reach top ten._

_Dark Circus released on May 05, 2005 to mixed reviews from both fans and critics alike._

Maybe it was the four year gap between their albums, maybe it was the darker and more self-deprecating themes of their songs but 'Dark Circus' bombed compared to their other albums.

They spent their summer on Warped tour and Eddie was pretty sure they were only allowed to play the mainstage due to the popularity of their older albums. By the end of the tour their setlist had more older songs on it than new.

The label seemed to sense this and sent them out on a short four month tour to promote the album instead of the usual long stints it shipped them off on. Eddie worried that this might be the end for the Loser's but they were used to making music when no one wanted to hear it. That was how they had started after all.

They had been home from tour for a few weeks when Stan called them all over and announced that he and Patty were engaged. They all did what Eddie had thought was a pretty good job at sounding surprised until Patty rolled her eyes and admitted Stan had already told her they'd all helped plan the proposal. While their surprised had been fake, their happiness for the couple wasn't fake at all.

YouTube, a website where people could upload videos, provided them with another bump in their album sales when Stuart made them an account and uploaded all of their old music videos. Richie and Eddie stayed up late one night rewatching all of them and cringing at the bright glare of the computer screen in the otherwise dark room.

"I can't watch." Eddie admitted before burying his face in Richie's shoulder as the dance sequence began to play for 'Everyone's had a crush on Bill Denbrough!' It was a lot harder to watch these videos they had filmed when they were just kids now that his thirtieth birthday was fast approaching and 'adulthood' no longer felt like something he would have to deal with in the long-off future.

"Some things should stay in the past." Richie said in distaste as he patted Eddie's head comfortingly before closing the video and instead pulling up a six-minute-long video of a cat playing in a box.

_**Mike:** I love Dark Circus. I think it gets a bad rap. It's pretty dark but its real. That's the most important thing for music, it's supposed to make you feel something. I think that's why people didn't like the album. It made them feel things they'd rather forget._

Eddie's weeks passed in blurs of studying, writing music, and trying to understand Richie's weird uses of 'hashtags' on yet another website Stuart had signed them up for, this one called 'Twitter' where you just said things? And people actually cared?

Stuart had insisted that they all make personal accounts and he opened one for the band that they all had access to posting on, as well as the record label themselves. The label banned Richie from posting on the band's page after two days. The label changed the password and made the rest of the band promise not to give it to Richie on threat that they'd get banned too before they gave it over.

Eddie didn't really see the point of the website but it did give him another way to argue with Richie and to connect with his fans so he supposed it wasn't all bad. He still thought it was weird that people cared when he said things like, 'saw a cloud that looked like a duck today' or 'why do so many people pretend dirty bean water is good? #conspiracy' after a midnight study session where he'd tried coffee for the first time.

At least his twitter posts were more profound than Richie's which ranged from ridiculous thoughts Richie would get in vigorous debates over 'does different dog shit taste different to the dog who eats it?' to him making fun of their own music. The whole month of January he posted a new tweet making fun of Ben's song 'January Embers'. And of course, who could forget Richie's many direct call outs to Eddie? Eddie's favorite was 'you're not fucking allergic to gluten it wasn't even a thing until like 2 years ago' simply because of how inaccurate it was and how much their fans corrected him before Eddie had even gotten the chance to.

_**Stuart Redman** (manager): I thought social media would help keep the Losers popular after the bomb of Dark Circus. Getting them to use their accounts was like pulling teeth. Then they all posted such weird shit I don't know why I even bothered. Weirdly, it did eventually make album sales go up._

On May 10, 2007 Eddie officially became a college graduate.

On May 11, 2007 Eddie officially remembered why hangovers sucked.

At least he didn't throw up this time, or that was what he thought until Richie proceeded to do an extremely graphic recount of the night before over breakfast the next morning until Eddie threw a gluten free muffin at his head.

They hung his diploma proudly in the front room of their apartment that night and no one teased him when he used a ruler to make sure it was equidistance from the photos on either side of it.

_**Patricia Uris** (lawyer, wife of Stanley Uris): I wouldn't say that they were unwelcome to me but they definitely didn't seem to be very thrilled by my presence. I think they thought I was going to take Stan away from them. Not even from the music, from them. I still think they're a little afraid of that, even now._

Stan married Patty in early June.

It was the first time Eddie had seen Stan cry since they were kids and the sight of it made tears well in his own eyes. By the time Stan was breaking the glass under his shoe some of the tears managed to leak their way out of Eddie's eyes but they were happy tears so Eddie didn't feel the need to hide them.

Richie noticed them from where he sat beside him and he rose a thumb to brush one off Eddie's cheek softly. "You're such a sap Kaspbrak."

There were tears shining in his eyes too so Eddie decided to let this one slid.

_**James Richardson** (drummer, Firestarter): The first time I met Stan I bet him that he couldn't outdrink me. I lost, badly. He hung the favor we had bet over my head for a fucking decade and then all he did was ask me to get the band to play at his wedding. The torture of waiting for what he'd come up with was way fucking worse than what he had me do, ever if we did have to play the 'YMCA'._

Eddie had never been to a wedding so he didn't really know what to expect. He had not been prepared for so much dancing. There was endless, endless dancing.

The band playing the wedding was one they'd met during their very first tour on Warped. Eddie didn't know how Stan had managed to bribe Firestarter into playing some traditional wedding songs and covers but they did. Stan even got onstage to play a song on his keyboard that he had written for Patty. Stan was known for writing some of their more bitter and fed up songs so no one was prepared for the sweet longing of 'the bird puzzle'. Eddie was pretty sure they all cried at that.

Once everyone dried their eyes the dancing went on, and on and on. Eddie couldn't help but feel relieved when the band shifted into a slow song. Beverly was already dancing with Ben which meant all he had to do was avoid Patty's cousins and he could sit this one out and take a much needed break.

He bit back a groan as a hand caught the sleeve of his suit and Eddie looked over his shoulder, ready to turn down whoever was touching him his feet hurt so bad but at the sight of Richie grinning at him all his pain fled away.

"Dance with me Eds?" Richie asked before doing a funny little bow and offering his hand to Eddie. Eddie took it without a thought, the lure of the music and the magic of the wedding having gotten too him. He let Richie pull him to him, holding their clasped hands aloft and his other arm resting lightly against the middle of Eddie's back. Eddie placed his free hand on Richie's waist and tried to shake off the sudden nerves he got by their closeness. He was sure it had to do with the strange looks they were getting. Eddie had forgotten that not everyone was used to his and Richie's relationship. He could see some of Patty's family whispering to each other and pointing at them not at all discreetly and Eddie was tempted to pull away from Richie's arms but he was holding on to him too tight.

Under the dim lighting of the dancefloor Richie seemed to glow like a beacon and Eddie was hit by the sudden and startling realization that standing there in the circle of his embrace felt more like home than any building he had ever been in. The thought filled Eddie with a bone chilling sense of terror and the words tumbled from his lips without a second thought.

"You better not fall in love with me." Eddie joked, but the words fell flat even to his own ears. He didn't mean the words for Richie anyway, he meant them as a reminder to himself. It would do him no good to fall in love with Richie Tozier. All that would get him was a mess and a broken heart. Eddie began to box up the moment even as he was living it.

As if Richie could hear his thoughts, he gave him a small grin and promised, "Don't worry Eddie. There's no chance of that."

_Dark Circus is the only album the Loser's recorded that was not nominated for a Grammy Award. Only two songs from the album hit Billboard's top ten; the group written 'Big Top' and Stan Uris's number one hit 'Could I cut it?'_

"We need to talk about the band." Mike announced, his hands clasped between his knees as he leaned forward on the well-worn couch in their rehearsal studio and surveyed them all with his serious gaze. "Are we going to sign another contract?"

"I don't know if I want to play music forever." Ben admitted softly, causing everyone to look over at him in surprise. He flinched under the sudden weight of their attention. "I'm sorry. I love you guys but I just want the chance to try something else." he trailed off at the end but Beverly was already nodding from where she sat next to him on the couch. The two of them had become awfully close since Stan's wedding.

"I agree. I want to try new things too." she said and either Eddie was imagining it or she was looking directly at Ben when she said it.

Eddie looked to the side where Richie was sitting beside him and he waggled his eyebrows up and down at him which made Eddie believe he had not imagined the look after all.

"We have more album on the d-deal. Dark circus can't be our last album." Bill said firmly to which everyone quickly agreed. Even if they didn't have another album left on their contract none of them wanted the last piece of their legacy to be the brooding and bombed Dark Circus.

"We need to go out with a bang!" Richie declared with a hoot that Eddie knew was more for show than him actually being happy about the idea of ending the band. Eddie had to physically stop himself from curling himself into a ball at the thought of the band ending. How could they so easily be talking about giving up their dream?

"What do you guys say?" Stan asked looking around the room curiously. "Think we got one more album in us?"

Eddie nodded with the others, clamping his mouth shut tight on the words that he thought they had several albums left in them. The others had already made up their minds. It wouldn't do him any good to say it now.

_**Ben**: I don't know who was more broken hearted that we were splitting up, us or the fans._

The announcement that their last album was going to be their farewell album was met with a surprising amount of sadness considering how badly their last record had done.

They fell into writing quickly; Eddie was no longer attending school so there was nothing stopping them from spending hours on end in the rehearsal studio. Patricia tended to drop by on her way home from work and she always made sure they were eating and hadn't completely lost themselves into their music but other than that she left them to their own devices.

The songs came together in a desperate rush, it was like now that they knew this was their last album all the songs they had inside of themselves were suddenly bursting to get out. Eddie and Richie tried again to write a song together and were once again unsuccessful. Richie seemed far more disappointed by this than he was the other handful of times they tried.

"Well, guess I missed my chance." Richie said dejectedly before crumpling up a piece of paper with their shitty lyrics on it and tossing it overhand across the room to land in the wastebasket. "You think I'd be used to that by now."

Eddie wasn't sure what he meant by that statement but before he could ask the door swung open and a laughing Mike and Bill spilled through and knocked the question from his mind.

_**Bill** : Writing that album was hell. It felt like we had to say every last thing we ever wanted to say on it and we only had so much time. I have never felt so much pressure in my life._

His very conflicting emotions led to even more sleepless nights and Eddie would have asked his doctor for sleeping pills but he didn't want to risk getting addicted. His nightmares over the clown and his guilt over his mother had a new addition to them. Not only did he now dream of his friends and bandmates breaking their instruments and tossing them into a pile at his feet but also of Richie, who stood in the shadows behind them and whispered repeatedly that he could never love someone like Eddie.

Somehow his soft whispers were far worse than the other's shouts.

With each day that passed Eddie realized more and more that what he felt for Richie, what he had always felt for Richie, was not something he felt for any of his other friends. It was not something he had felt for anyone else, period.

Eddie felt trapped by the sudden knowledge of his feelings. He had gone years not knowing of them, or at least not allowing himself to know them. Years of not overthinking every time Richie bumped his arm against his. How was he supposed to go on like this, knowing that he wanted something he could never have?

Richie would not want a man like him. Richie probably didn't even like men judging by the string of women he'd had over in their twenties.

Eddie was playing with a broken heart and he needed to stop it now before it took out more than just him. He wrote the song 'beep beep' in an attempt to tell himself to stop with his feelings for Richie but when he played it for everyone, they thought it was just a song telling Richie to shut up. He didn't know how any of them heard the lyrics 'keep shouting out beep beep/stop trying to go for things you'll never reach/that's advice you can never keep/here we go, once more into the breach' and thought that but in hindsight Eddie was just glad they didn't all immediately call him out on his crush.

Richie was thrilled with the song and Eddie heard him singing the chorus offkey in the shower every morning which did not have the effect Eddie had been hoping the song to have on his heart.

But Eddie had run the risks. He had gone over every way this scenario played out and the amount of times Richie did something other than laugh at him were very very slim. Eddie saw no reason to risk the only heart he was ever going get over a long shot he knew he would miss. So he carefully bundled up all the things he felt for Richie that weren't platonic and locked them away, deep down in his chest. Eddie wished he had a key he could physically throw away but as it was, he just had to hope they would suffocate down there in the dark.

At the very least he didn't have to think about them anymore.

_**Eddie**: 'Beep beep' has been out for years. Does it really matter what I wrote it about now?_

Their final album released in early August and they surprised fans at record stores all over the city by showing up and doing surprise signings. Eddie heard more than one person say "You're not as tall as I thought." which made his teeth set on edge. Other than that, it was a great time and Eddie was reminded once again by how broadly their music had touched lives.

He returned home in a happy enough mood that he didn't even tease Bev when she changed before 'going to hang out with Ben'. Richie had gone off by himself after the last record store and Eddie suspected to the discontent of his heart that he had gone off to hookup with some of their fans. He sat at the kitchen island nursing a glass of red wine when a sudden crash against the front door nearly had him spill the whole thing down the front of his shirt.

Eddie raced to the door, peering through the peek hole as he wondered belatedly if he should have grabbed a knife from the block on the kitchen counter. He let out a short lived breath of relief when he realized it was just Richie outside until he saw the way Richie was using the wall to hold himself up and he realized he was drunk enough he couldn't figure out how to get his key into the lock.

Pulling open the door Eddie flinched when Richie looked up at him with bleary eyes that only blinked at him when Eddie stepped forward to wrap his arm around Richie's waist and help lead him into the apartment.

"You look like shit." Eddie muttered as he led Richie down the hallway towards his bedroom. He knew saying it didn't do anything, Richie was so far gone the words simply washed over him. Eddie had just known he needed to say something or he was going to explode. Richie made a strange noise as Eddie helped him fall into the bed and pulled off his shoes. Richie buried his face into his pillow and Eddie wondered how the hell he had even managed to make it home in this state as he carefully removed Richie's glasses before he broke them and damaged his eyes.

"I don't want it to end Eds." Richie whispered, his voice muffled slightly by the pillow but still somehow sounding like they were seventeen again, about to jump off a ledge into the great unknown.

"You don't want what to end?" Eddie asked as he grabbed Richie's surprisingly empty trashcan and placed it next to the bed incase Richie ended up needing it in the middle of the night. He had seen his friend in this state before, chances were high that he would need it at least once before the night was over.

"Us." Richie whispered reaching up and catching Eddie's hand, squinting up at him without his glasses. "The music. The Losers. I don't want it to end."

Eddie sank down onto Richie's bed beside him. In truth, he felt the same way but he still understood somewhat why everyone else needed to walk away from the music. He silently hoped that they were just taking a break and this wasn't really their last album after all but he chose to keep that thought to himself. Saying it aloud felt like telling what he had wished for on a shooting star or a birthday candle. If he whispered the words into the air, they would never come true.

As much as he didn't want to take a break from the music Eddie knew that it was likely for the best. He could tell that the others needed some time away from it, to try their hand at a different kind of life. To get away from the never-ending tours and pressures, to remember what it was like to spend a year sleeping in the same bed in the same city.

He hated the thought of the Losers splitting up but Eddie had heard one too many horror stories of bands that stayed together long after they should have and the endings there were never good. At least this way they were still parting friends. The thought of not having an excuse to see them all everyday was filling Eddie with a sinking feeling of dread he tried very hard not to focus on.

"I don't want it to end either." Eddie admitted in a whisper that caused Richie to snort into his pillow.

"It's your fault you know." he slurred causing Eddie's breath to rush out of him in a gasp. He reminded himself that Richie was drunk and didn't really know what he was saying but Mike had told him once that drunk people didn't lie, they didn't see the point in hiding their truths in that state. "You and your stupid diploma making everyone else think about their future." Richie cast a meek glare up at Eddie in the darkness as he gestured to himself. "What kind of future am I supposed to have? What am I good for other than this?"

"You're good at lots of things." Eddie said immediately, Richie was one of the funniest and talented people he knew. Did he really not know that?

Apparently not, because Richie only laughed humorlessly again before burrowing his face deeper into the pillow like it would protect him from their oncoming future. "No, I'm really not."

_The Barrens released on August 02, 2008. The album contained chart topping hits 'I've got a BIG BAD idea!' written by Denbrough, Hanlon and Tozier, Kaspbrak's 'beep beep', Tozier's 'pasta' and the group written 'unforgettable'._

They didn't talk about what Richie said the next day, or the day after that until finally Eddie accepted that they were never going to talk about it. Whether they talked about it or not, Eddie couldn't shake the thought from his mind that the band breaking up was all his fault.

No one else said anything of the sort and Eddie didn't want to bring it up and have them suddenly decide that it had been because of him so Eddie kept his thoughts to himself as the label sent them off on their farewell tour which was to be their longest tour ever.

Fourteen months, twenty-six countries, 213 shows.

Before they left Stuart made them promise to keep their phones on them and post on social media to keep their fans engaged and try to sell out what few shows hadn't already so that the label would add more dates. That was when Richie realized that Eddie still had the cell phone the label had given him over a decade ago and he nearly lost his mind making fun of him over it. Richie made Eddie buy something called a smartphone and every time Eddie mentioned radiation and cancer Richie waved him off and told him that was just a myth.

To make matters worse, Richie posted a picture of Eddie's old brick phone and his new phone side by side on myspace with the caption, 'Finally upgraded!'

At least with his new phone it was even easier for Eddie to insult Richie on twitter.

_The album was nominated for three Grammy Awards-album of the year (nominated), best alternative music album (won) and best rock song for 'unforgettable' (nominated). Other awards included American Music Awards artist of the year (nominated), and favorite pop/rock song for 'unforgettable' (won)._

The tour felt like a nonstop blur that Eddie never wanted to end. The longer he wanted it to last the faster it seemed to fly by. They rung in the new decade on stage during their last show of the tour, and as Eddie finally had to admit to himself, very likely ever.

Eddie looked out at the screaming crowd as the band formed up in a line center stage to bow, something they had literally never done before. They had already played three encores of 'Welcome to the losers' club!' and tried to leave the stage twice. It was obvious to everyone that no one in the arena wanted this night, or the band, to come to an end.

Mike was saying something into the microphone, thanking the fans for being there and for all the love they had shown them over the years and Eddie was only half listening to him as he looked out in amazement at the crowd.

The fact that all these people were there to listen to them, to see them play their songs, was something he didn't think he had ever fully understood until that moment. He could see up into the stadium seating that it was packed full but he couldn't make out faces up there. The crowd was like a massive screaming blob, it was so big it felt like he couldn't wrap his head around the sheer number of them all.

A sudden nudge to his shoulder pulled Eddie from his thoughts and he looked at Richie to see him pointing out into the crowd with a grin on his face. Eddie followed the line of his finger to a sign being held up high above the crowd, held aloft by a small preteen kid sitting on two people's shoulders.

Eddie squinted to make out the sign in the dark and the way the crowd was still moving and ebbing like an ocean. He let out a startled laugh as he managed to read the words and something in his heart ballooned up and filled his throat with emotion as he walked to the edge of the stage to get closer to the crowd who screamed in response. The words of the kid's sign echoed in his mind as Eddie suddenly bent to clamber down off the stage into the thin row of equipment that was fenced off from the crowd with security who looked at him curiously as the crowd surged and screamed and reached for him in this newfound closeness.

He felt a sudden surge of panic at the amount of people reaching for him but he tamped it down and slapped as many high fives as he could, motioning for the crowd to part and let the boy with the sign closer to him. People shoved tight to each other to let the young boy squeeze through them, his eyes wide in shock and his sign curled up tight to his body to protect it from being bent against the crowd.

"What's your name?" Eddie yelled, bending as close to the railing as he dared. The boy looked up at him with wide eyes like he couldn't believe this was actually happening. Up close Eddie could see that he was younger than he had thought. He couldn't have been older than eleven and he looked utterly starstruck as he stared up at him. In the back of his mind Eddie realized Mike had gone silent, the band watching him curiously and trying to figure out what the hell he was doing.

"Danny." the boy shouted back; his voice shrill as he tugged at the tiny black coat he was wearing. Now that he was no longer sitting on someone's shoulder Eddie could make out the black fabric pinned to the back to make it look like Eddie's infamous waistcoat. His throat grew suddenly tight and he had to blink back the burning in his eyes at the sight.

Eddie was struck by the sudden realization that this was in fact their last show and he wasn't going to need his coat anymore. He didn't need to be able to face crowds when he wasn't playing for them. Eddie pulled his inhaler out of his coat pocket and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans before shrugging out of the coat that he had finally grown into a few years ago. The screaming grew louder at him taking off his clothes and Eddie was pretty sure he heard Richie yell something foul into the microphone. Eddie ignored all of it as he held his coat out to Danny and pointed to the sign in his hands.

"I'll trade you!" Eddie called over the cheers of the crowd. Danny looked at him with stunned eyes before nodding and passing him the poster through the bars of the gate. Eddie smiled and motioned for him to turn around before helping him shrug the coat on. Eddie leaned slightly closer to call into his ear, the words meant only for him and not the churning crowd. "This is a magic coat. This coat will make you invincible."

Danny turned back to look at him with wide eyes and a shocked look on his young face, positively drowning in Eddie's coat. He looked as doubtful by the words as Eddie had been when his friends had told them to him so Eddie leveled him with a serious look and whispered Beverly's promise to him from all those years ago. He wasn't sure if Danny was able to hear him or not but he must have caught the shape of the words on Eddie's lips because he mouthed them back to him.

"If you believe it does."

A slow smile began to spread across the boy's face and Eddie returned it with a laugh. His shoulders felt lighter than they had in years as he leaned forward to ruffle Danny's hair in a way Richie used to do to him when they were kids. "Thanks!" Eddie cried, Danny nodded and wrapped the lapels of the coat tighter around him as the smile grew ever wider as Eddie turned away like he realized he wasn't about to change his mind and suddenly demand he hand the coat back.

Eddie passed Stan the sign in his hands and Richie and Bill reached down to help pull him back up onto the stage. For the first time in thirteen years Eddie faced the crowd without his invincible waistcoat and held his new sign up high over his head with a smile so wide it hurt.

'Forget Mozart. I'm going to be the next Eddie Kaspbrak!'

_**Danny Torrance** (violinist): That day changed my life. I don't think I would be who I am in music today without the confidence Eddie and that coat gave me. It really is magic._

After over half of his life being dominated by music Eddie felt suddenly adrift by the loss of it.

It wasn't gone of course, he still played his violin every day and he toyed around with new lyrics and melodies he knew no one would likely ever hear, but it was different now. He wasn't feeling a rush to write perfect, album worthy songs, all the time. He could write cheesy, horrible lyrics that made him cringe the next day just because he was having fun writing them. He was able to make music just for the love of it again. He hadn't felt this free with his lyrics since high school.

That was the only silver lining in the whole ordeal.

The worst part about the band being over was the sudden onslaught of free time. Eddie hadn't realized before just how much of their lives had been dominated by the demands of their music. There was no rehearsal time now, no tours, no interviews to worry over, no music video shoots to cringe their way through. Eddie had more time on his hands now than he had ever before in his life and he didn't have the faintest idea what to do with it.

They all had enough money that if they saved and spent properly none of them would ever have to work again unless they wanted too.

Eddie desperately wanted too.

Free time meant he was alone too often with his thoughts and his thoughts had started taking him down paths he didn't very much care for. It was like all the things he had managed to drown out with the music for the last decade and a half were suddenly dying for his attention and they would not leave him alone. His thoughts ran through an endless stomach aching loop of his guilt over his mother's death, his terror that day at Neiblot street, the reason his heart sped up whenever Richie was near him, whether that new mole on his face was cancerous. Over and over and over again ad nauseum.

None of these things were things he wanted to think about so Eddie decided the best way to make sure that he didn't was to limit his free time.

It took him a few months but eventually he managed to put his business degree to good use and got an entry level job as a risk analyst. Everyone else had slowly started to devote more time to new hobbies and careers or were off traveling the world so they understood his need to have something else to occupy his time. Well, everyone except Richie who told him that he was 'the most boring rock star in the history of music.'

He still saw the losers nearly every day, even after they all finally moved into their own places. Eddie hated living alone but once Beverly had moved out, he knew Richie would be next and Eddie didn't want to be left in that apartment with all of their memories alone so he chose to leave before he could be left. He rented a clean quaint apartment in upper Manhattan and hated the sound of the echoes of his footsteps around the apartment each night as he tried to get used to sleeping alone.

Mike was off traveling the world but he sent postcards and he called often. Eddie wondered if this was how his mother had felt all those years ago. The feeling of receiving news but not being able to send any, of wondering whether any gap of time in correspondence was due to Mike being busy or because he was dying or already dead. It was not a pleasant feeling and the thought that he had driven his mother into an early grave kept knocking on his thoughts with each postcard Mike sent.

Everyone seemed to find some new way to pass their time. Bill wrote and released a novel to mixed reviews. Eddie thought it was pretty good but the ending sucked. Beverly was producing a clothing line with very good results. Stan was devoting his time to Patty and his new love of ornithology. Ben had decided to go to school for architecture and he was interning at a local firm. And despite his fears that he was good for nothing else but the Losers, Richie had proven to be quite the popular comedy writer, writing on a popular animated cartoon that Eddie didn't think was that funny but seemed right up Richie's alley.

Before Eddie even realized it was happening he had fallen into a routine; wake up, run, shower, work, call one of the losers, shower, play the violin, sleep, do it all over again. Endless loops of the same day played over and over again like a song on repeat.

The one thing that was different were the weekends when the group would all get together to hang out. Eddie always felt like he was at home in those hours they spent together, usually piled in Stan's living room. It was like all of the time he spent on his own during the week he was just playing pretend. He was just pretending to be a functioning adult. The only time he was truly himself was when he was with the losers.

The endless repetition of his weeks turned into months and soon a year had passed in a never-ending loop of the same thing over and over and over again.

Then another year passed. This one now included Richie doing standup shows and Eddie refusing to admit that he found him funny. He liked to do a bit about his 'boring rockstar friend' that made Eddie's teeth hurt with how hard he clenched them. Beverly and Ben finally stopped dancing around each other and admitted their feelings and now being in the same room with them made Eddie's heart long for something he had never truly wanted before. Bill released his second book with a way better ending. Mike stopped traveling the world to come back to New York City and created an ani-bullying charity with Stan and they worked to raise awareness to the issue. The Maturin Foundation was soon providing resources and help for kids nationwide.

They were out drinking one night and 'Welcome to the loser's club!' started playing on the jukebox. Everyone in their booth started groaning or cheering and Richie moved to sitting on the top of the back of the booth's seat and glaring around the semi-crowded bar.

"Who picked this fucking song?" He cried, causing some people too look over at them wearily as Eddie tried to pull him back down into the booth. A girl in a worn jean jacket sheepishly raised her hand by the bar. Richie pointed at her as Bev began to use her fingers to drum on the table. "This is all your fucking fault!"

The thirteen second instrumental opening to the song ended and when the recording of Mike's voice started singing everyone in their booth did too.

Richie stayed sitting at the top of the booth, leaning against the wall behind him and he pulled at Eddie's collar until he clambered up to join him even though it was not safe. All Eddie could think about was the booth giving out below them or catching his skin on a rusty nail, but then Richie was pulling him tight against him and his friends (and the majority of the bar) were singing their song and everything else faded away.

Another year passed. Bev's fashion line was one of the most popular in the city. The Maturin Foundation moved to a larger office to accommodate its growing number of volunteers. The ending of Bill's third book was actually good. Eddie walked in on Mike and Bill kissing which caught everyone by surprise until they thought about it for half a minute. Ben was offered a paying job at his internship even though he still had a year left of school. Mike broke his ankle trying to learn how to skateboard. Stan went on a six-week bird watching trip in South Africa that 'changed his life.' Richie became a total fucking mess.

Eddie started to notice the erratic tapping of Richie's fingers whenever he saw him, the way he'd lost way too much weight far too quickly. Every time he tried to say something to him Richie laughed it off. Eddie wasn't sure how to bring it up to the others, not sure if he was just being overprotective and overbearing or if something was really wrong.

It didn't take him long to realize not saying anything was worse than saying something and being wrong. Eddie reread the speech he had written down to say to the others for the third time before folding it carefully and placing it in the pocket of his jacket. He was mouthing the words to himself as he opened the front door and he yelped in fear when something fell through it.

"Ow." Richie groaned, raising his hands to his head where he lay on the floor in front of Eddie. He must have been sitting leaning back against the door and had fallen into the apartment when the only thing supporting him moved.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Eddie asked, crouching down to check Richie's head for any signs of blood. Richie caught his wrists and moved his hands to his face, the stubble on his face rough under Eddie's fingertips. Eddie breath froze in his lungs at the sensation and he shoved the feelings it brought up away, forcefully and angrily. Richie was clearly fucked up worse than Eddie had ever seen him. Eddie could deal with his repressed feelings for him later.

"I wanted to see you Eddiekins." Richie whispered and the slur in his voice made Eddie sigh. He knew he should have spoken up about Richie's problems sooner. It looked like there was going to be a new addition to his never-ending guilt and nightmares.

"You're so fucked up." Eddie groaned, removing his hands from Richie's face to push him into a sitting position. After several long minutes and two painful bumps against the walls Eddie finally managed to move Richie to the couch. Eddie sat in front of him on the coffee table as he tried to get Richie to let him look closer at his eyes so he could figure out if he was on anything else other than alcohol. Eddie didn't have any experience with drugs that one didn't get from a prescription but he had been around drunk Richie enough to know that this was not him. This was something else entirely.

"What are you doing to yourself?" Eddie asked softly as Richie's head lolled back against the couch.

"I've told you, we're rockstars!" Richie let out a pathetic laugh that made the hairs on Eddie's arms stand up. "I'm just being who I'm supposed to be."

"I'm such a shitty friend." Eddie whispered to himself, shaking his head as the awfully familiar sense of guilt began to consume him. When had he gotten so bad at speaking up for people he could tell were hurting? He used to be Richie's biggest defender, had choking all of his other feelings for Richie drowned that out too?

"Don't say that!" Richie snapped, seeming more alert suddenly as he sat up straighter and reached for Eddie, falling half into his lap in the process. "Don't you ever say that." he repeated, his hands scrambling against Eddie's legs as he tried to right himself from where he lay half on the floor and half against Eddie.

"I am though." Eddie insisted, his throat tight as he reached for Richie to try to help move him back to the couch. His self-hatred felt at an all-time high he hadn't felt since the end of the 90's. "I stood by and let you destroy yourself. I'm the worst."

Richie let out a strangled sounding laugh, his hands tightening where they still rested on Eddie's legs. "You're the best Eddie. That's the problem."

Eddie's brow wrinkled in confusion but before he even had the chance to think to ask him what he meant Richie leaned forward and pressed his dry lips to his.

Eddie pulled back immediately like he had been burned and glared at Richie who was still looking at him in that dazed way like he didn't even know what he had just done. "No." Eddie insisted, his fingers digging into the worn material of Richie's t-shirt as he helped ease him back onto the couch. He had wanted to kiss Richie for a long time, probably longer than he admitted even to himself, but there was no way in hell he was ever going to kiss Richie when he was in this state. "Not like this."

Richie made a noise that could have been agreement or protest but he passed out before Eddie could figure out which.

_After their farewell tour for the Barrens ended some of the members settled into a quieter life while others stayed in the spotlight, although one of a different color._

"It's not just booze." Richie announced sullenly the next morning, his head buried in his hands as he stared at the undrunk cup of tea Eddie had placed in front of him.

"I figured." Eddie might have grown up sheltered but he knew the difference between Richie drunk and Richie fucked up on something else, even if he didn't know yet what that something else was. He forced himself to take a deep breath and ask the words he'd been choking on since Richie had woken up in a semi-functional state. "What else have you been taking?"

Eddie braced himself for the worst, already rattling off the tons of drugs that Richie could have access to and might be polluting his body with. Even though he told himself he was ready to hear it, it still felt like getting punched in the gut when Richie shrugged and said casually, "Just cocaine. And some ecstasy here or there." he waved his hand through the air as if the second drug he listed was barely even worth bringing up.

"Are you an idiot?" Eddie raged, trying to keep his voice quiet at first because he could see how Richie was holding his head like he could physically hold the pain away. But the thought of Richie willingly putting those things into his body was filling him up like he was a balloon made out of rage and the more he ranted the higher his voice went until Richie was wincing from the volume. "Don't answer that, I already know that you are. Do you know how many people fucking die a year from overdoses asshole?"

Eddie glared at him waiting for an answer and Richie looked up at him with downcast eyes before he let out a sigh and buried his head in his hands like he could no longer bring himself to meet Eddie's glare anymore.

"I think I should go to rehab." Richie admitted to the counter.

"I think that's a very healthy choice." Eddie agreed in surprise, he had been preparing himself all night for a fight to get Richie to concede to that same point. Eddie wrapped his hands tighter around his mug of tea as he tried to decide whether it would be better or worse to bring up the kiss now. Eddie felt weird knowing that they had kissed when Richie clearly didn't remember it. He had been up half the night wondering about what it meant while simultaneously making sure Richie didn't choke on his own tongue while he slept. Richie hadn't mentioned the kiss but considering he didn't remember how he had gotten to Eddie's apartment he wasn't that surprised. Eddie hadn't figured out yet how he felt about it, or what it meant, but if Richie was going to forget about it, Eddie figured he probably should too. Richie had been fucked up on so much shit last night, he probably would have kissed that fucking clown in that state.

"Bound to make one sooner or later." Richie groaned against the counter. "I can't keep doing this shit anymore."

"I'll help you." Eddie said immediately, already pulling out his phone to start looking up the best and most discreet rehabs in the country. If Richie was really serious about doing this Eddie wasn't going to give him a single second to reconsider.

"Ughhhhhh." Richie let out a long groan before speaking into his arms, "That's part of the fucking problem."

"What is?" Eddie asked, looking up from his phone to meet the weak glare Richie was giving him over his arms.

Richie looked beaten, that was the only way Eddie could describe it. He looked beaten and worn down and as exhausted as Eddie felt all at the time. He looked like he wanted to say something, like he wanted to say lots of things, but in the end Richie just shook his head with another long sigh.

"Fucking forget it." Richie sighed before downing half of the contents of the mug in one gulp.

Eddie watched him stumble down the hall towards the guest bedroom in confusion, his fingers hovering over his lips without realizing it.

_**Richie**: Oh, yeah I was totally on drugs. People always look shocked when I admit to it but like, who gives a shit now? I'm clean. I've been clean for 1,598 days, in case you were counting._

He wasn't sure if he was supposed to call the others or not but Eddie did not feel equipped to handle this on his own so when Richie woke up hours later everyone was there and they had already packed him a bag and secured him a spot at a rehab facility upstate. Eddie had finally found something he was willing to spend some of his hard-earned money on.

"Think I'd change my mind?" Richie asked Eddie when he saw the others there although he didn't sound the slightest bit surprised or upset. He just sounded resigned and tired down to his very soul.

Eddie shrugged in response before crossing his arms tightly over his chest like that would help hold his feeling of guilt at bay. "We let this go on long enough."

"Eh, fuck it." Richie agreed, running his hands through his hair before giving all of them a grin they did not return. "What's a great band without an addict right?"

_**Beverly**: We were all a little bit adrift without the music. This big part of our lives was suddenly gone and we all had this big hole we now needed to find a way to fill. Some of us just chose better than others._

The drive to upstate New York was beautiful at that time of year and Eddie didn't notice a single thing about it. He drove Richie to rehab in silence that last longer than every silence of their near thirty-year friendship put together. At the counter after they signed Richie in he surprised Eddie by suddenly throwing his arms around him in a tight hug. Eddie returned it with equal vigor, his arms squeezing tighter than he knew was possible when Richie whispered into his ear his voice breaking on the last word, "Don't forget about me Eddie."

"Please." Eddie scoffed as they pulled apart slowly. He gripped Richie's shoulders tight even as the nurse behind the desk cleared her throat to remind them that Richie needed to go with her. Eddie ignored her as he stared into Richie's eyes and promised, "You're unforgettable."

Eddie didn't know how he managed to make the drive back to the city in one piece his mind was so consumed by his thoughts, all of them darker than the night falling around him.

They decided that it wouldn't be good for Richie to get back to the city and go back to living on his own, it would be too easy for him to fall back into his bad habits. Eddie offered to move into his guest room until Richie was back on his feet, he lived the closest after all and Richie's place was even closer to his work than Eddie's. It just made the most sense, at least that's what Eddie told himself as he tried to erase the phantom feeling of Richie's lips on his.

All it took was that one fleeting second of their lips touching for the feelings Eddie had locked up so long ago to come rushing out of the places he had buried them. The feelings that were unearthed were ones that Eddie had known were there for a long time, far longer than he liked to admit. They were also ones that he knew would never amount to anything. If him and Richie were meant to be, they would have been by now. There was no point in risking one of his best friendships over some silly crush.

Eddie really wanted to talk to someone about the feelings he was having but the only one he wanted to talk to was Richie which defeated the purpose.

Eddie knew that he was playing with fire. That living with Richie while he adjusted to his new life without booze and drugs wasn't going to be easy. That it was going to be even worse now that Eddie was being forced to acknowledge what he felt for the other man. This was a risky situation that was bound to end no other way but badly but for once Eddie couldn't bring himself to care.

He was tired of living alone. He was tired of not letting himself feel things. Eddie was tired of his boxes and his warning labels and the rooms of himself that he had locked off for decades. He was tired of pretending that Richie was just his friend, even if that was all he was ever going to be. For once in his life Eddie let himself stop worrying about the consequences, let himself not prepare for the worst-case scenario. For once in his life Eddie told himself to not brace himself for the aftermath. For just this once, Eddie allowed himself to feel. Worse, he allowed himself to want.

That wasn't to say he was having an easy time wanting these things, of wanting Richie. It was one thing to know he wanted something and pretend he didn't. It was another thing entirely to allow himself to want for it so badly he ached.

Eddie started going on long walks to try to clear his head as he tried not to count down the days until Richie returned. He had tried reboxing his feelings a few times but had quickly given up on it. After so long of being buried in the dark the feelings refused to be ignored any longer. Eddie knew the only way he was ever going to be rid of them now was for them to die, whether on their own or due to rejection Eddie really didn't want to find out.

He was walking late one afternoon when he came across a bridge in a small park and it reminded him of the kissing bridge back in Derry. Eddie paused and leaned against the cool metal railing. He couldn't remember the last time he had thought about the bridge, or about Derry at all. He smiled as he remembered leaning against the railing in Derry and Richie leaning beside him, bumping his shoulder in the moonlight. Eddie's fingers hovered over the railing for a long moment before he slowly traced the letters 'E + R' against the cold unforgiving metal.

Eddie shook his head at himself and forced himself to walk away from the bridge as he chastised himself for making wishes he knew had no hope of coming true.

_There was no talk of any members of the band attempting a solo career although Tozier, who began stand-up comedy in 2011, did debut two new songs in his 2014 Netflix special._

If Richie was annoyed that Eddie was suddenly his live-in babysitter, he didn't show it. Eddie had to admit it was nice not living alone, he had missed having company. Even if that company was a messy man-child who ate nachos for more meals in a row than Eddie would have thought possible. Even after months past and it became clear Richie wasn't in a danger of a relapse Eddie stayed. Richie didn't ask him to leave, and Eddie didn't really want to, so they moved some of his things over from his place and Eddie sublet his apartment to one of Patty's cousins and let himself start to think of his room as his and not as 'Richie's guest room'.

The feelings were somehow easier to ignore when Richie was around. Eddie didn't bother even trying to deny them anymore, at least not to himself. If anyone else were to ask him he would lie through his fucking teeth. But Richie often annoyed him so badly when they were together that it was easy for Eddie to pretend he didn't want to kiss him for more reasons than just getting him to shut the fuck up.

Richie got even more serious about his comedy after rehab and in the summer of 2014, he was asked to film a comedy special for Netflix. Eddie had been to the majority of his stand-up shows so he thought he knew what to except, what jokes would be told. By the time Richie reached his last bit Eddie realized how very wrong he had been.

"Some of you may not know this but I used to play bass in this little band you might have heard of, the Losers." Richie paused as the crowd began to laugh and cheer and Eddie looked over his shoulder at the crowded room, surprised to see the band name still getting that kind of reaction even years later. Beverly nudged his shoulder as he turned back around and smiled at him knowingly.

"Clearly you've never heard of us. Well that's about to change." Richie continued before taking a drink of water and stepping towards the stage wings. A stagehand passed him a worn blue guitar Eddie recognized as the one they all scrapped together to buy Bill to replace the one broken at the Keene party from hell. Eddie hadn't realized Bill had taught Richie guitar as well and when he leaned over to peer across Beverly and Stan he saw Bill grinning widely at Richie as he held the guitar aloft for a moment like he was back on one of their crowded concert stages instead of playing a comedy show.

Richie pulled the strap over his shoulder as the room clapped and he waved them down after a moment while Eddie exchanged surprised and confused looks with the rest of the group. At least their expressions told him Richie hadn't told them he was going to do this either.

"I wrote a few pretty good songs over the years but my best one I never got to play. I'd like to play for you the song I always knew would be a hit but the rest of the band was too scared of it being more popular than their songs so they wouldn't let me sing it." Richie grinned out at the front row and Eddie shook his head at him when they made eye contact, hoping he couldn't see the smile Eddie was having trouble biting back. He knew with absolute certainty what song Richie was about to play.

"This is 'I fucked your mom'." Richie announced while the members of the band groaned loud enough for other members of the audience to hear and laugh at. Richie gestured out to them with a smile, "As you've just heard the rest of the band is here tonight. Don't mind them they're just upset I'm about to show them all up."

Eddie bit the inside of his cheek to hid his laughter as Richie started to play the up-tempo song. He was better at the guitar than Eddie had expected. The song was just as bad as Eddie remembered it being the first time, and every subsequent time since, that he had heard it. He stood by the fact that it never would have worked for their shows but he had to admit it worked here. Richie knew just when to pause after a line to wait for the laughs to die down, he knew when to drag out certain words. Even with his slightly off-key singing the song was actually almost enjoyable for once.

Eddie attributed that to the venue rather than the song itself.

"Thank you!" Richie called over the cheers as he finished the song. "It's amazing, I know. Way better than 'January Embers' right? Sorry Ben." Eddie saw Ben throw up a 'wtf' hand gesture while Bev patted him on the knee in comfort and everyone else in their row tried to hide their laughs into coughs.

Richie paused for a moment before he shrugged and Eddie could see him draw a deep breath before he continued on with his set, still strumming on the guitar. "While I was in the band there were a lot of rumors about my sexuality." Richie adopted a 40s radio announcer voice as he continued, "That Tozier, is he gay? Is he straight? Does he like women? Does he like men?" Richie finished in his own voice as he announced, "Turns out they were all a little right. I like both!"

The cheers were even louder than they had been all night and Eddie clapped robotically and stood with the others as they cheered beside him. Eddie swallowed hard and he felt Richie look at him for the long moment it took the cheers to die down. The words kept ringing through his mind and Eddie had to physically shake his head to be able to focus as he sat back down. He could mull over this later.

"That's not a part of a joke or anything." Richie said with a shrug as the crowd settled down. "I just wanted to get it out there. Rehab taught me the danger of holding things in." Richie laughed at himself and played a funny little tune on the guitar. "Dropping all kinds of truth bombs tonight."

Eddie's heart thudded in his ears as he stared up at Richie, trying to both listen to him and wrap his mind around the fact that Richie had just told him (well, everyone) that he liked men.

"I'm going to sing you another song tonight, one that no one has ever heard." Either it was just Eddie or Richie seemed nervous for the first time that night. The sight of it, combined with the slight waver in Richie's voice, made Eddie's gut clench as a sudden wave of nerves crashed over him too.

"I wrote this song when I was fifteen, the very night we decided to start a band. I have been too chicken shit to sing it even though I still mean every word. What do you say New York, you up for another one?!" Richie called into the microphone and for a moment Eddie felt like he was back on one of those crowded concert stages beside Richie, having listened to him yell similar phrases into the mics over the years. The cheers were loud and immediate and Richie grinned as he started strumming a new tune. Eddie cheered and clapped with the rest of them even though he had no idea what song Richie could be talking about. Eddie felt Richie's eyes land on him again like he was checking to see what Eddie's reaction to this upcoming new music was.

"That's good because you don't really have a choice in the matter." Richie was definitely looking at him when he said, "This is 'hypochondriac'. I feel like we should all take a moment to appreciate the fact that teenage me knew the correct meaning of that word."

A strange tightness began to wrap around Eddie's throat at the song's title and he tried to shake the feeling off, reminding himself that he didn't even know the words of the song yet. There was no reason for him to be tensing up like this.

The tune was jaunty and walked that strange line between a slow song and a fast one. Richie looked more nervous than Eddie had seen him since that night long ago when they stood beside each other on the kissing bridge.

"You think your stomachache's an ulcer/think the pain in your head's a tumor/say that spot on your skin must be cancer/you say it all without any humor." Richie was offkey and his voice held a shaky quality that it hadn't had on the last song and he had yet to look away from Eddie. Eddie stared back up at him in shock, his fingers digging into the armrests so hard his hands hurt.

Was Richie seriously singing a song teenage him had written to make fun of Eddie on a special that would be broadcast to millions of people? The anger of the thought quickly passed into resignation as Eddie realized, this was Richie. Of course, he was.

"I run my mouth and think I'm slick/you swallow pills and say you're sick/you throw back meds like I throw out jokes/maybe we're both just blowing smoke." His fingers were curled so tight they were cramping and Eddie glared resolutely at Richie who had finally started to look away from him to glance out at the crowd although his eyes kept wandering back over to Eddie.

"I keep taking swings and going wide/waiting for the day I'll do more than strike." The line made Eddie's brow furrow in confusion, that didn't seem like it was teasing him like all the other lines did. He had just long enough to wonder at what it could mean before Richie continued on with the song.

"I can't compete with all your illnesses/you can't compete with my running mouth/how did I fall so hard for a hypochondriac in red booty shorts?" Richie crooned the last word which probably would have been funny had he not been staring at Eddie again and the words finally began to sink into Eddie's skin.

Maybe Richie wasn't teasing him at all. Was this the Richie Tozier version of a love confession? Was he really trying to tell Eddie he too had a crush on him for years?

"Each day's a new illness/another wasting disease/I know all your symptoms/think I could help them ease."

Eddie couldn't breathe. Was Richie really doing this? He'd said he still meant the words of the songs. Was there even a possibility of a chance that he liked Eddie the same way Eddie liked him? Eddie met his eyes and felt hope beginning to buoy up inside of his chest.

"I can be your hardest dose/you can be my best punch line."

All of the air left Eddie's chest in a rush as the balloon of hope inside of him popped. How foolish he had been to think that this was a love song, that Richie would ever feel the same way about him. This was just another joke at Eddie expense. Likely, he had caught Eddie staring at him one time too often and in true Richie form decided to reject him in the biggest and most public way possible. Eddie swallowed hard and tore his eyes away from Richie's, focusing on the bright stage lights so he wouldn't see the tears forming in his eyes.

Eddie didn't hear too much else of the rest of the song or even the end of the show, he was too busy playing the word 'punchline' over and over again in his head. Nothing like having your lifelong crush call you a joke in a room full of people to get one's blood boiling. He would have gotten up and left during the set but he didn't want to draw any more attention to him than he felt like there already was.

When the show finally ended Eddie didn't even stay long enough for Richie to walk off the stage, he jumped to his feet and marched his way out into the lobby before rounding the corner and flashing the stage pass Richie had given him to the security officer. 'Punchline' rang out like the peal of a gong through his mind in time to his footsteps until it was the only word he felt like he had ever known. Eddie stormed down the hallway to the green room Richie was just opening, shoving him through the doorway and pressing him up against the wall behind it before he even knew what he was going to do.

"Woah Eds." Richie said startled, the door slamming shut behind them. He looked amused for half a second before he caught the look on Eddie's face and his features abruptly closed off. "I take it you didn't like my song."

"The song where you called me a joke? No, I fucking didn't asshole." Eddie snapped, not moving his arm from where he had pinned against Richie's chest. He felt like there should be smoke coming out of his ears he was fuming so badly. Why couldn't Richie just reject him like a normal person instead of turning it into some huge spectacle?

"I didn't call you a joke!" Richie protested, making no move to push Eddie off of him.

"You called me a punchline!" Eddie spat, the word leaving a fool taste in his mouth. He doubted he would ever be able to hear the word the same after that night. "If you don't like me back that's all you had to fucking say."

"Like you...back?" Richie asked after a moment, rolling the words around his mouth like they were a new language. Eddie was too angry to wonder at the tone in his voice.

"I get it." Eddie spat, his anger beginning to turn inwards. He thought he had been doing so well at hiding his crush, at talking himself out of his feelings, and all along Richie had seen. He had known. Even worse everyone else had probably seen to and if they hadn't, they certainly would now that Richie had just shone a fucking beacon on them. "You noticed that I like you and it's all a big joke to you, just like everything else-"

"Beep beep Eds." Richie tried desperately, pulling at Eddie's arm. Eddie ignored him, his other arm pressed on the wall near Richie's hand, completely boxing him in as he ranted, the words spilling out so quickly it was a wonder they didn't trip each other on their way out of his mouth.

"But these are my fucking feelings okay? I didn't ask for them! I never wanted to like you like this-"

"Beep beep Eddie." Richie tried again but Eddie was on too much of a roll now to be stopped by some rule they made up as children.

"Or this much. Trust me, I never wanted to fucking like you this much." Eddie shook his head, angrier at himself by this point than Richie. "And I'm sorry if that's fucking funny to you but I have never felt about anyone the way I do about you and I-"

Whatever he was going to say next was lost when Richie rose his hands to Eddie's face and pulled him towards him to kiss him. The angry words on Eddie's lips were absorbed by Richie's and after a stunned moment Eddie dropped his arm from where he had been holding Richie against the wall to slide around his back, pressing himself closer to him. Richie moved his hand to cup the back of Eddie's neck and Eddie moved his hand off the wall to twist his fingers in Richie's hair, surprised to find it far softer than he had ever imagined it would be.

He didn't know how long they stood there kissing for. Seconds? Minutes? Years? All Eddie knew was that by the time they pulled apart he was both breathless and stunned and he knew that he would never look at Richie's lips the same way again.

"Oh." Eddie whispered in shock as Richie pulled away and rested his forehead against his, equally as breathless. The words slipped out without him meaning too. "That was way different than last time."

His eyes fluttered open in time to see a look of hurt pass across Richie's features. "Last time?" he asked thickly and Eddie felt a flash of panic as he realized that he had never told Richie about the night he had kissed him in a stupor. But the words that came out of Richie weren't ones that Eddie had been expecting and he tightened his grip on Richie when he tried to pull away, the hurt shining clearly on his face. "I fucking knew you remembered kissing on new years."

"New year's?" Eddie asked in confusion, refusing to loosen his grip even when Richie tried to untangle his fingers from his hair. "We've never kissed on new years."

"You don't get to play that game anymore. You just said you remembered." Richie said dejectedly, sounding more annoyed than angry.

"I remember you kissing me the night before you went to rehab." Eddie admitted, hating the words even as he said them. Maybe he had kept that as a secret more to protect his feelings for Richie than Richie himself. "I don't remember anything about a new years."

Could they really have kissed on a new year's eve? Yes, Eddie could see the truth of it written clear as day across Richie's face. Eddie felt a pang of sadness that he didn't remember it but the kiss they had just shared was more than good enough to make up for that.

Richie looked at him for a long moment as he absorbed his words before he snorted and rolled his eyes. "We're so fucking stupid." Richie groaned, running a hand over his face as he laughed.

"When did we kiss on new years?" Eddie prompted him curiously, poking him in the ribs. And why couldn't he remember it?

"Fucking 2000." Richie admitted and Eddie recalled suddenly Richie avoiding him for a few days. At least now he knew why and he had the answer for why he couldn't remember the kiss. Damn Peter McVries and his sugary drinks.

"That's why you weren't talking to me asshole?" Eddie gasped in mock outrage. The truth was if he had been in Richie's shoes he would have avoided him too. Hell, he'd done enough of that over the years and he hadn't even remembered the damn kiss. "You made me think I vomited all over you."

"You did." Richie said with a nod before putting his hands over his chest the best he could with Eddie practically leaning on top of him, and adopting a wounded expression. "Over my heart."

"Shut up asshole." Eddie rolled his eyes at the image but he couldn't help the grin he knew was covering his face.

"Make me." Richie grinned cheekily. Eddie didn't need to be told twice and he curled his fingers back into Richie's hair and pulled his face down to meet his. He finally understood now why people always talked about kissing like it was a good thing. He would gladly kiss Richie until he passed out from oxygen deprivation that was how good it was.

"For the record." Richie whispered breathlessly when they finally pulled apart. "I didn't call you a joke. I called you a punchline."

"Same thing." Eddie argued with a roll of his eyes. He really did not want to think about that right now.

"No." Richie explained, pulling away far enough to look into Eddie's eyes and gripping his hands where they rested on Richie's face. "The punchline is the best part of a joke. Just like you're the best part of my life."

The words made Eddie melt back against him and they likely would have kissed all night if the sound of cheers from the doorway didn't eventually pull them apart.

Eddie pulled away from Richie to look over his shoulder where the losers were grinning and clapping in the doorway and he blushed fiercely, it grew even deeper when Richie took a small step away from him to bow, pulling Eddie along with him.

_**Ben**: I still can't believe Richie dissed 'January Embers' like that. He always told me that he liked it._

Eddie had never been so happy in his entire life. Not when they signed their record deal, not when he saw Derry in the rearview mirror, not at any of the awards they had won. None of that compared at all to what he felt now that he could finally kiss Richie Tozier.

It was even better because Richie didn't care that he had to brush his teeth before Eddie could kiss him in the mornings or after they ate. He didn't mind that Eddie had to take things slow. He already knew all of Eddie neuroses so it didn't take him very long to be used to the new ones being in a relationship brought up.

He couldn't believe they had wasted so many years both liking each other and not admitting it. It bothered Eddie for a while until Richie had finally reached up to smooth out the crease between his eyebrow with his thumb and whispered, "Stop regretting the past. We'll make up with it with the future."

It was a rare occurrence for Richie to be wise so for once Eddie did as he bid without retort.

Despite the years Eddie told himself he didn't like kissing or touching other people Richie proved him wrong daily. It was weird how he didn't mind the idea of sharing germs with Richie. It took Eddie a while to be brave enough to touch him, really touch him, but after watching Richie come undone at the touch of his hand it became Eddie's new favorite thing. Even better was the way Richie would pant out "Fuck I love you." during. Eddie wanted to bottle those words up and play them over and over again like his new favorite song.

He should have known by then that their domestic bliss wouldn't last very long and he was only just getting used to the new swing of their routine when Richie had to leave to go on a quick tour for his comedy. He'd asked Eddie to go with him and as much as Eddie wanted too, he was too worried that he would hold Richie back or distract him from writing new material. Besides, it was only three weeks. They'd been apart for way longer than that while Richie was in rehab.

Eddie dropped Richie off at the airport and they kissed for long enough that Eddie's face felt chaffed from his stubble. It was well worth it to have just another moment longer with him.

"I'll meet you right here in twenty-one days." Eddie promised, wrapping his arms around Richie's waist and peering up at him, no longer as annoyed by their height difference as he used to be.

"You better bring a sign with you. I might have forgotten what you look like by then Eds." Richie grinned cheekily, causing Eddie to roll his eyes.

"Don't call me Eds." he sighed in long bred annoyance. "And you could never forget me."

"Course not." Richie agreed before leaning forward and kissing his nose, making Eddie pull back slightly in surprise. "Who could forget this cute face!" Richie cried, pulling away far enough to pinch Eddie's cheek.

"I'm not cute." Eddie protested, forcing himself not to smile although it was hard to do when Richie was looking at him like that and touching his face at the same time.

"Sure you are Eds!" Richie grinned before pinching the other side of Eddie's face as well and making Eddie's brow furrow at him as he cried. "Cute cute cute!"

Eddie swatted him off him lightly and sighed as he looked at his watch more to let out the smile he was biting back than to check the time. "You have to get going or you won't make it through security in time."

"What would I do without you here to boss me around?" Richie asked, pulling Eddie against his chest and tucking his chin on top of his head. Eddie really didn't mind their height difference when Richie held him like this.

"Miss your flight." Eddie sighed before pulling away. Richie shrugged without concern as he leaned down to kiss him again. They finally pulled apart when a security guard tapped them on the shoulder and told them to get moving.

Eddie walked Richie as far through the airport as he could and watched him walk away, reminding himself it was only twenty-one days. They'd both been waiting a lifetime for this, what was three more weeks?

_**Stan**: None of us did really well without the music. It was like we were all just playing pretend at what we thought our lives would look like without it._

He'd deep cleaned the apartment by the end of the second day. He had washed everything in the apartment by the end of the third. He had spent time with the other losers but Ben was working hard to finish his last semester of college and Mike and Bill were way to into PDA for Eddie to be around them too long right now. Stan was off on another bird-watching trip and Bev was in crunch time to finish a design line. Eddie was well on his way to cleaning the apartment a second time late one night, counting down the hours until Richie finished his show in Reno so he could facetime him, when he started humming suddenly.

A soft melody began to form in his head and Eddie quickly put down the duster he was holding to go to the guest bedroom that used to be his until he started sleeping beside Richie who didn't kick nearly as bad as he used to when they were teens. Eddie grabbed his violin from his case and he was so lost in the music that he almost didn't hear his phone ringing when Richie called.

The days passed quicker after that. Eddie fell back into his pre-Richie kissing routine: wake up, run, shower, work, call the losers, dinner, shower, play violin, call Richie, play violin, try to sleep, do it all over again. Near the end of Richie's tour when they were facetiming he caught sight of the violin on the couch beside Eddie and he paused for a long moment.

"Are you writing again?" he asked in a strange tone that wasn't quite surprised.

Eddie hesitated for a moment like he had been caught doing something wrong before he nodded.

Richie grinned at him through the phone, "Cool. I thought I was the only one."

The words made some of the tension in Eddie's chest relax even as Richie continued, "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

"Not over the phone asshole." Eddie said with an eyeroll. Music still sounded tinny to him over the speakers of his phone and when he heard what Richie was writing he wanted to hear how it was supposed to sound.

"I need to hear it in person huh? So you can ravage me afterwards?" Richie said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively in a way that made Eddie's heart ache with fondness.

Eddie scoffed and resisted the urge to flip off the phone before realizing there was no point not to and he flipped Richie off with an eyeroll. "In your dreams."

"Abso-fucking-lutely." Richie agreed with a wink that made Eddie blush.

_**Bill**: I don't think I ever stopped writing songs. When you make music for as long as we did stopping would have been like trying to stop breathing._

After picking Richie up from the airport Eddie was pretty sure he didn't draw breath for ten minutes. Richie was either kissing him or talking a mile a minute telling Eddie about everything that had happened on the tour. It had gone well, which was the second most important thing to Eddie, and Richie had had fun (but not too much fun) which was the most important.

"Oh, and did you see this?" Richie asked, pulling his phone out of his pocket as they shut the door into their apartment. Eddie blinked as Richie shoved his phone in his face and he pulled back far enough that his eyes could actually focus.

It was a picture of them, wrapped around each other at the airport the day Richie left. Eddie blushed at the sight. They were kissing in that PDA way Eddie had always hated, like you couldn't tell where one of them ended and the other began. Bold letters splashed across the top of the photo read, _'Reddie confirmed_!'

"What the fuck is a reddie?" Eddie asked in confusion, the word washing away his embarrassment at the photo. He looked up from the phone to see Richie gaping at him in shock.

"We are!" Richie cried, gesturing between the two of them. "Richie and Eddie equals reddie!"

Eddie had known about people using combined names to talk about couples before but he had never expected it to happen to him. He rolled the word around in his mind for a moment before shrugging. Even if he didn't like it, it wasn't like he could change it now.

"You've really never heard that before?" Richie asked curiously, pocketing his phone. "They've been calling us that for years."

Eddie had never bothered to read the tabloids about the band. Once his favorite newspaper seller moved he stopped having someone to tell him the funny bits of the articles and he didn't care enough about gossip to read them for himself.

"How long have people thought we were dating?" Eddie asked curiously. He had known about it in the 90s but he had assumed it had stopped during Richie's very public string of girls phase that was the reason Eddie made him get tested before he could even consider the thought of touching him under his clothes.

"For forever." Richie said with a shrug. "People are pretty fucking excited about this photo." Richie suddenly peered at him with concern. "You okay with it? With us being out like this?"

"Of course." Eddie said in genuine surprise. "We've both kept too much shit quiet for too long. You think I was going to keep us a secret?"

Richie smiled at him softly before closing the distance between them to kiss him. The kiss started softly but before too long it turned hungry, as the days of Richie's absence suddenly catching up to them. Eddie was slipping Richie's shirt over his shoulders when the thought of all the people he had shared the small space of the airplane with suddenly hit him. As if he knew immediately what the cause for Eddie's hesitation was Richie took the shirt from Eddie's hands and tossed it carelessly on the floor before taking Eddie's hands softly in his.

"Shower." Richie said, knowing exactly what Eddie needed before he did as usual. Eddie followed after him gladly and as the steaming water washed the dirt and germs from both their bodies Eddie finally got to show Richie how much he had missed him.

Afterwards, after they both actually showered, Richie sat on the couch with Bill's old guitar in his lap strumming mindlessly as Eddie carefully tuned his violin.

"When did Bill give you that anyway?" Eddie asked curiously, nodding to the guitar. He had been meaning to ask for ages but kept forgetting, or more accurately Richie kept distracting him.

"I took it as penance." Richie shrugged causing Eddie to look at him questioningly. Richie smirked at the expression but merely shrugged. They did still have some secrets between them after all. "Bill knows what he did."

Eddie nodded in acceptance knowing well that if Richie wasn't telling him than Richie wasn't telling anyone and there was no point in wasting his breath trying to get it out of him.

"You going to show me your songs or not?" Eddie asked, his violin finally tuned.

"I had a better idea." Richie said, pushing his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose as he looked at Eddie nervously. "Why don't we write a song together?"

"Because we're shit at it." Eddie replied immediately, thinking back on all the many times he and Richie had tried and failed to write a song. Some of the lyrics they had come up with still made him cringe.

"Yeah because we were both repressed as fuck and afraid the other was going to find out how we felt." Richie retorted just as fast. Eddie paused to consider this before nodding in agreement. Good songs only came from a place of honesty, there hadn't been a lot of honesty between them in that part of their lives.

"Okay." Eddie agreed with a nod before looking over at Richie. "Let's give it a shot."

Maybe it was because they were no longer holding anything back from the other or maybe it was because there was no pressure that anyone was ever going to hear it but by the time they finished writing the song late that night Eddie felt like it was the best song he had ever written and would ever write again.

_**Eddie**: I have been incredibly lucky to have had two great loves in my life, music and Richie Tozier. Once you had one of them the thought of ever giving it up was ludicrous._

It was strange to Eddie how invested people were in his relationship. He had thought that their fanbase would have died out by now, they hadn't toured or released new music in years. But when Richie finally managed to bully Eddie into getting an instagram he was immediately hit was an influx of followers that made his head spin.

It didn't hurt anything that Richie had posted a picture of him on his account and tagged Eddie. The photo was one Eddie was furious at him for sharing but he wouldn't take it down. Eddie was young in it, painfully young, with his arm still in the bulky cast. You could clearly see the black marker 'LOSER' across it and the bright red 'V' Eddie had written over the 'S'. Eddie hadn't known the picture was being taken, it was when Mike was in his polaroid camera phase, and he was looking away from the lens to glare at something on the outside of the frame. Probably Richie.

The internet went wild over the photo. While they had often talked about the cast that was the inspiration for the title of their first album, they had never actually shared a photo of it before. Eddie hadn't even known one existed. Not only did the photo get him tons of followers it also sparked a hashtag across social media. #losersreunite

Eddie didn't admit it to anyone but the idea filled him with a longing so sweet he could taste it.

_**Mike**: I never really thought our breakup would last forever. Even when we were recording our last album, I knew it wouldn't be the end of us. I knew that our music was meant to be heard. My grandpa told me before I left Derry that bands always fail but I knew that wasn't going to be the case for us. The things we had been through together, what we faced, we weren't just a 'band'. We were family. I think one of the things that made us so popular was that when you listened to us, you felt like family too._

It was Mike and Bill's turn to host their weekly dinner which meant that Eddie had to pop two antihistamines before they went over since they had recently adopted a cat. ("You're not fucking allergic to cats." Richie had insisted before they left the house but one glare from Eddie told him he was fighting a losing battle so he kept his gripping to a minimum.)

The food was eaten and they were well on their way into a second bottle of wine (well Richie wasn't drinking and Eddie was still on his first and only glass, drinking on medication was never a good idea) when Mike suddenly announced out of the blue.

"I've been writing songs again." he sounded worried and like he was admitting that he had really been on the lam for the past six years, like they were going to yell or berate him for it.

Richie and Eddie exchanged looks over the rims of their glasses and had a silent conversation before Richie settled his arm over the back of Eddie's chair as he admitted, "So have we."

Ben raised his hand sheepishly in agreement and Bev nodded along. Stan shrugged and nodded that he too had been writing as Bill looked around at all of them in wonder.

"Are we all writing again?" he asked quietly, laughing softly when they all nodded. They all fell silent for a moment and Eddie wondered if they were all thinking the same thing he was. If they wanted desperately the same thing suddenly burning with desire through his veins.

"We should do another album." Bill suggested, making eye contact with each of them in turn. Everyone quickly voiced agreements or nodded except for Richie who was oddly quiet. Eddie looked over at him in concern and surprise as Richie surveyed the table before laughing.

"Fucking finally!" Richie cried happily, hitting his open palm on the table and making them all jump.

_**Jack Cantori**: The day the Losers told me they had one more album in them was one of the best days of my life. Those kids were never just another band to me. Their seventh album was an unexpected gift._

They decided not to announce that they were going to make a sudden return to music. They called Jack and Stuart who helped them work up a contract with Duma Records again, this time for a one album deal with a clause that they could resign for one album at a time again if they chose to keep making music.

Some of the songs they had been writing in their hiatus were good. Others were great. Others were quickly rejected and buried away.

And then there was the song that Eddie and Richie had written that one night. The first time they played it for the others they chose to sing it as a duet. Richie's offkey voice somehow still blended well with Eddie's, who was actually a pretty good singer but couldn't sing and play violin at the same time well enough to do it on stage. They weren't halfway through the song when Ben started softly crying. The others were all too enamored by the song to give him any grief over it.

They had already decided they would be dropping the album with no warning or singles but it was quickly decided that once the album was out, Richie and Eddie's 'decades' would be their first single in eight years.

_The Losers made a surprising comeback album in 2016, dropping 'repressed memories' on July 4 with no announcement that it was coming._

The album came out and for weeks afterward the Losers were all over the radio and the internet. Eddie felt like every other song that played on his favorite station was one of theirs.

He couldn't go online anymore without seeing some headline for their band, some about their music but the majority not. He wouldn't admit it to anyone but Buzzfeed succeeded in click-baiting him more than once. But really how could he be expected to not read 'You won't believe the outfits Richie Tozier's worn on stage!' He was only human after all.

They did a cover interview for Rolling Stone in September and this time when they were asked about the events of the summer of 1989 they decided to come clean about that terrible day in the abandoned house on Neibolt street. Or more accurately, their interviewer asked them "Did you have anything to do with the apprehension of the serial killer attacking children in Derry in 1989?" While everyone else was still struggling with deciding to tell the truth or not Richie shrugged and made the choice for all of them, "Yeah that was fucking wild."

Maybe it was because enough time had passed from that day, maybe it was just the relief that they no longer had to worry about someone else telling the secret for them, maybe they were just too loopy from the excitement of being there but they all laughed like that was the funniest joke he had ever said. That night was the first time in twenty-seven years when Eddie did not dream about clowns.

_The sixteen song album showed a maturity and adult level that had not been present in earlier albums. It also features the only song cowritten by Kaspbrak and Tozier, 'decades'. Waiting over a decade for their partnership proved to be worth it. The song is hailed as one of the sweetest songs the band ever written._

Their reunion tour started in September and was set to finish up the following July. Eddie felt a strange out of body experience as he walked onto a new bus, this one far bigger and nicer than the one they'd had before. This one even had two stories with the bunks being upstairs.

The first day on the bus they weren't actually going anywhere, they were just dropping off their things and saying hello to Ricky who Stuart had somehow managed to convince to come out of retirement for one more go around with the band. Their first stop on tour was right there in New York City which was more home to any of them than Derry had ever been.

That night the band stood in the wings of the stage, looking out into the dark crowd that surged and moved like a living beast. All of them seemed to be tense, although they had done this hundreds of times before. Even Richie looked to be nervous, he kept tapping his fingers against the side of his leg like he needed to get out there and play his bass immediately. Eddie felt a nauseating bubble of nerves in his stomach and he leaned against Richie's shoulder in worry as he whispered into his ear.

"I don't have my waistcoat anymore." Eddie admitted regretfully, chewing on the inside of his cheek nervously. He had never managed to face the audience before it, what if he couldn't do it now?

"You never needed it Eddie." Richie promised, turning to place his hand on Eddie's face and forcing him to look at him. He took his other hand and clasped Eddie's tightly as he whispered, "You're braver than you think."

Eddie took a deep breath and nodded, gripping his violin and bow with one hand and Richie's hand in the other, they followed the rest of the group out onto the stage to the deafening yells of the waiting crowd. To his surprise he didn't need his waistcoat after all, he could face the audience with ease now. Maybe Richie was right. Maybe he had never needed it all along. Maybe it just been a placebo he had been force feeding himself for years.

He couldn't believe how much he had missed this. How much he missed the deafening roar of the crowd that he could hear even over the earplugs in his ears. He had forgotten what it was like to look out and see nothing but a massive sea of people, all there to see them. He had forgotten what it was like to have the crowd singing so loudly that he could barely make out Mike's amplified voice over it all.

Before he knew it, they were reaching their last song of the evening. Eddie started playing his solo intro into 'decades' and he couldn't help but look over at Richie while he did it. From across the stage Richie looked suddenly like he was about to throw up and Eddie felt his brow wrinkle in concern. He had never known Richie to have stage fright before and it wasn't like their song wasn't well loved as was apparent by the loud cheering the crowd was doing just from the opening notes.

He didn't know why all the reviews were saying the song was so romantic, Eddie thought it was more lovesick than anything else. It was more about the feeling of missing out on the greatest love of your life because you were too scared to tell them how you really felt than actually being with the person you loved. Maybe that was why it was so well liked, maybe everyone had that person they always meant to tell them they loved them but they never managed to find the words.

Maybe Richie and Eddie had found the words for them.

"Days creep by as months soar past/hours drag and the years they fly/every time the words rest on my lips/I find another excuse not to try." The lyrics had certainly hit the members of the band hard enough when they had first heard them. Afterall, Ben had a crush of Beverly for nearly had long as Richie and Eddie had ones on each other. And Mike and Bill had been chasing around each other for years before they both decided to take a risk.

"This confession's been burning for so long/a forest fire eats up my lungs/tell myself I'll say it the next day or next week/then I look up and ten years are gone." How long would Eddie have gone before telling Richie his feelings? Would he ever have told him had Richie not shown him his first?

"Took you to the kissing bridge/hoped you'd see our initials there/tried to get the bridge to speak for me/hoped you'd see my heart laid out and bare." How many times did Richie almost confess to him? Enough that he hadn't managed to keep track of them all. How Eddie could have been so blind for so long was a mystery to him.

"Days trickle by like grains of sand/in this hour glass we've locked ourselves in/tell myself I'll confess when the time is right/but I know I'm just lying to myself again/Meet me at the kissing bridge/we can cry over our lost years/time slips through my fingers/as I choke on words thick with fears."

A sea of cellphone lights were suddenly out there waving them on and Eddie looked out and wondered how many people were singing along to their song with someone specific in mind, some missed chance they had never taken? How many of them would the song make brave enough to try?

"It's better to have this much of you/I'll keep my dreams to myself/it's better to have some of you/than all of anyone else/Hands on the clock keep moving/seconds turn into weeks/suffocating in my silence/on the truth I can't yet speak."

Eddie liked to think he would have tried eventually but he knew that was a lie. He would have been happy with the bit of Richie he had and shoved all his other wants and desires away until they finally died from lack of light.

"Years slip through my hands/as I bite back all my truths/meet me at the kissing bridge/we can mourn our wasted youth."

Every time he played the song Eddie had to remind himself not to regret their missed years, until eventually he didn't have to remind himself anymore because he didn't regret them as much. As Richie had said, they had the future. That was more than enough.

"Meet me at the kissing bridge/I'll tell you the truth with my lips/can't find the perfect words/to say I've loved you since we were kids."

They neared the end of the song and Eddie's ears perked up at the sudden lack of a bassline. He looked across the stage in confusion to see Richie removing the strap of his bass from around his neck and placing the instrument on a stand that Eddie hadn't notice before. The rest of the band continued playing the instrumental break before the last verse and Eddie felt his face pinch in confusion but he followed their lead.

This wasn't how the song was supposed to sound, why were they all playing it like this? Eddie kept playing his part, the same verse over and over again as he watched curiously as Richie fumbled with something in his pocket and started walking across the stage. Mike clapped him on the back as he walked past and Richie seriously looked about two seconds away from hurling which made Eddie even more confused. He tried to look around at the others to get some clue as to what was going on but the violin only gave him so much room to turn his head and he didn't want to take his eyes off of Richie as he headed his way.

Richie finally came to a stop right in front of him and Eddie slowly lowered his violin, opening his mouth to ask him what he was doing when Richie dropped wordlessly to one knee in front of him. Eddie's arms fell slack to his sides as Richie held a thin gold band up and started speaking but Eddie couldn't hear him over the screaming of the crowd and the pounding of his heart in his ears.

Eddie stared mutely at Richie as he spoke, none of the words reaching him through his shock, and he had to physically remind himself to not let his mouth fall open as he slowly moved his gaze from Richie to stare at the ring in his hands and back again.

The buzzing finally subsided and Eddie realized the stadium had gone eerily silent as thousands of people held their breath. Bill was holding a microphone in front of his face and Richie was looking up at him expectantly, waiting for an answer to a question Eddie hadn't even heard. Eddie swallowed hard as he admitted sheepishly, his voice amplified over the crowd.

"I blacked out for a second. What did you say?"

Richie groaned long and loud and swore just as Bill moved the microphone so it was in front of him.

"Are you fucking kidding me? I have to do this twice? The things I do for you Eds." Richie said in exasperation but Eddie could tell he wasn't really upset. The fondness in his eyes was unmistakable.

"Don't call me Eds." Eddie clapped back immediately, not even the sight of Richie professing his love on his knees before him enough to get him to like the nickname.

"Do you want to marry me or not asshole?" Richie asked with a sigh, holding the ring up higher as if Eddie couldn't see it well enough.

"Not when you ask me like that." Eddie joked over the hammering of his heart in his ears even though inside he was screaming 'YES!'

"Eddie Spaghetti, Eddie, Eds." Richie paused and put his hands over his heart dramatically. Eddie was almost as impressed that he didn't lapse into a Voice as he was by the actual words. "I have loved you from the moment we met. I have loved you through the worst and best parts of our lives. I loved you then and I love you now. We've wasted years being idiots. Let's not waste any more time." Richie stood up suddenly and Eddie resisted the urge to help him up when he shook off Bill's offered hand. Richie held the ring up again and stared at Eddie with the most vulnerable look Eddie had ever seen, as if he really didn't know what Eddie's answer would be. "Will you marry me Eddie Kaspbrak?"

"Yes." the word was out of Eddie's mouth before Richie was finished speaking and Richie smiled blindingly before gently sliding the ring on Eddie's finger and stepping closer to kiss him while the crowd cheered themselves hoarse.

The band finished the rest of the song but Eddie didn't pull away from Richie as they did so. The band could survive without them for one verse, even if it was in their song.

"You have carved your name onto my heart/I should have said that from the start/Trace your initials onto every bridge I pass/If I told you I'd loved you for decades/What would you say?"

Richie whispered the last line against Eddie's lips as Mike sang it and Eddie smiled at him, leaning back to meet his eyes as he said loud enough for Richie to hear him over the screaming crowd.

"I love you too."

_The album was nominated for three Grammy awards-best alternative music album (won), song of the year for 'decades' (won), album of the year (nominated)-as well as winning American Music Awards for tour of the year._

_'Decades' and Marsh's 'if you believe it does' were both number one hits. Hanscom's 'lanterns' and Tozier, Kaspbrak, and Denbrough's 'not scary at all' both reached the top ten chart._

Neither Eddie or Richie had to discuss it to know that neither of them wanted to have a big wedding, or to wait very long to get married. They had been waiting for long enough. As such, their wedding planning went like this:

Eddie curled half against Richie on the bus's couch as they drove through the night upstate to where they would play their show in Albany the next day. Richie googled 'marriage license in New York' while Eddie spun the ring around his finger in a dazed silence. Bill sat across from them typing frantically into his phone to get officiated from some online website

"Aw fuck." Richie swore in disappointment causing Eddie to look up at him in concern. "We have to wait twenty-four hours after we get the license before we can do the ceremony." he said in disappointment.

"Scared I'll change my mind Tozier?" Eddie teased before curling tighter against his side, still not quiet believing that this was happening.

"I'd like to leave as little time as possible for you to come to your senses." Richie agreed before kissing the top of his head and flipping Ben off when he 'aw'ed at them.

Their wedding went like this:

They got their marriage license from the Albany courthouse, waiting outside the doors the moment they opened. They waited the required twenty-four hours to sign and file the paperwork, dropping it off two minutes after the courthouse opened and then sprinting back to the bus so Ricky could speed them on the way to their next show that they were likely to be late for as they were supposed to have left the night before.

While their marriage license was dated September 6, the day they filed, their actual wedding took place in the early hours of September 5 off a small side street they'd seen from the lights off the interstate.

They didn't care about the fact that they didn't have the license yet, that Richie didn't have a ring, that Bill's officiate certificate hadn't arrived in his inbox yet. They followed the exit ramp down to the small covered bridge Stan had somehow managed to see in the darkness and Ricky pulled the bus over to the side of the road and declined their invitation to join them. He'd been with them long enough to know that there were some things the group needed to do alone.

The bridge was wooden and worn and something about it made Eddie feel like he was coming home until he realized it was because Richie was standing underneath it with him. Bill married them in three sentences, because Richie told him if he didn't fucking hurry up and make Eddie his husband already he'd tell everyone why he had to give Richie his guitar.

"You have already loved each other through the best and worst times of you lives, all that's left is to make it official. Richie do you take Eddie to be-"

"Yes." Richie cut him off and Eddie let out a small laugh. Their clasped fingers were trembling and Eddie wasn't sure which of them was shaking, or if they both were.

Bill turned his damp eyes to him with a smile, "Eddie do you-"

"Yes." Eddie nodded rapidly "Abso-fucking-lutely." He could have kept going with more confirmations but Richie was kissing him and that was the only thing that mattered anymore.

Their wedding was a rushed, frantic, mess and Eddie loved every single moment of it. Richie pulled away enough to wrap him up in his arms and Eddie sighed and rested his head on his chest, hearing the sound of his heartbeat in his ear.

"You ready for whatever comes next?" Richie whispered softly as the others whistled and clapped.

"As long as I've got you, yes." Eddie assured him leaning back to smile up at his husband.

"And the music." Richie reminded him, running his thumb over the space between Eddie's eyebrows even though he knew there was no crease there to smooth out. Maybe because there was no crease to smooth out.

"You first." Eddie admitted, "Then the music."

As the bus pulled away ten minutes later the glare of its headlights just caught the new faint carving on the wooden bridge. Even after the bus's taillights were no longer in sight the 'E + R' seemed to shine in the moonlight.

_The Losers remain one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in alternative rock history to date. They have sold over 90 million records worldwide and are considered one of the most influential bands of the genre. They are legends in Billboard's alternative rock radio history, currently holding the record for the most number one singles (13), the longest consecutive weeks a song has been number one (23), and the most number one songs in the top ten of Billboard's alternative songs chart (21). The band has been nominated for seventeen Grammy Awards and won nine of them. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame in 2018._

_The band has stated that while they currently have no plans to record any more new music they are open to the possibility._

_**Bill**: We were never just a band, we were never just friends. The Losers have always been family. No matter what comes next for us, that will never change._

Eddie wiped at his eyes as he stared down at the photo of them below Bill's quote. It was another one they had provided the author of the book with, just like the first photo. This photo wasn't quite two years old, it was taken back when they had sat for their interviews with her. They still looked as awkward and slightly out of place as they did in all photos. Bill had his arms wrapped around Mike and Stan, Beverly and Ben were holding hands, Richie had Eddie wrapped up in tight embrace that even looking at it in a photo made Eddie's ribs hurt in phantom memory. But the thing that really made this photo stand out from the other ones in the book was that in this one they all looked really, truly, completely happy.

Sighing in contentment Eddie let the book fall shut before taking another look at the cover. There on the black amp behind the guitar, was a sticker he hadn't noticed before. He was still grinning at their band's logo when arms wrapped around his shoulders.

"What are you smiling at Eds?" Richie asked curiously, resting his chin on top of Eddie's head.

Eddie didn't bother chastising him for the nickname. He had given that battle up long ago. "We made the cover." Eddie told him, gesturing to the 'the Losers' sticker on the amp.

"Course we did. We rock!" Richie said in a Voice that made Eddie scoff even as he mocked the title.

"The book any good?" Richie asked curiously, flipping it open to thumb through the pages curiously.

"I only read our chapter." Eddie admitted sheepishly, feeling suddenly like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Richie pulled away and Eddie looked over his shoulder at him to see him staring at him with wide eyes. "Did my Eddie skip ahead? I'm shocked. I knew I'd rub off on you one day."

"Don't flatter yourself asshole." Eddie said with a smirk as he stood up, wrapping his arms around Richie's waist to pull him in for a kiss.

"As much as I would love to stay here and ravish you on the kitchen counter." Richie said, pulling away slightly out of breath and smirking at the look on Eddie's face. "We do have a previous engagement."

Eddie sighed and pretended to pout until Richie kissed him again before pulling away.

"What are we working on today again?" Eddie asked curiously as he shoved his phone into his pocket. Mike kept changing the schedule on them and Eddie didn't know what they were doing anymore until they all showed up.

"I think we're recording 'youth is wasted on the young'." Richie said with a noncommittal shrug. He didn't mind the constant rearranging of their plans the way Eddie did.

"Are we showing them 'from way up high' today?" Eddie asked curiously as he pulled on his coat.

"Do you want to?" Richie asked, reaching forward to straighten his lapel. He moved his hand to rest against Eddie's cheek and Eddie allowed himself a moment to lean against it and just stare at him in wonder. Most days he still couldn't believe he got to wake up next to Richie. It was a wonder how few nightmares he had when he slept beside him.

"I want people to hear it." Eddie admitted in a whisper. "Like we say in the song, 'I want to shout from the rooftops about how much I love you'. Even though the statistics are pretty high that one of us would fall."

"That's the most romantic thing you've ever said to me Eds." Richie smiled, his hand moving off of Eddie's face to rest on the back of his neck and pull him closer.

Eddie narrowed his eyes as he realized that maybe he wasn't done fighting this battle after all. "Don't call me-"

Richie cut off the rest of his warning with a kiss. Eddie poked him the stomach in annoyance before deciding this hill wasn't one worth dying on and he wrapped his arms around Richie, losing himself in the feel of this kiss he'd waited years to have and that he planned on having for the rest of the years he had left.


End file.
